FINAL PROGRAM
AUGUST 18–20, 2008
NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS
NEW YORK CITY
S P E E C H
W W W
I N
.
T H E
M A I N S T R E A M
S P E E C H T E K
.
C O M
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
w Analytics
w Mobile Devices
w Natural Language
w Multimodal
w Security
w Video and Speech
w Voice User Interfaces
w Testing and Tuning
Ray Kurzweil
author of The Age of
Spiritual Machines and
The Age of Intelligent
Machines
Lior Arussy
President, Strativity Group
author of Excellence
Every Day
Gold Sponsors:
Kevin Mitnick
Silver Sponsor:
Media Sponsors:
author, world-famous
(former) hacker, &
security consultant
Organized and produced by
Welcome to SpeechTEK 2008
Speech in the Mainstream
Last year we recognized that the speech industry was at a tipping
point, or the point at which change becomes unstoppable. To
illustrate this point, we featured Malcolm Gladwell, author of the
best-selling book, The Tipping Point, as our keynote speaker. Not
surprisingly, a lot has happened since the industry tipped: We’re
seeing speech technology in economy-class cars and advertised
on television to millions of households, popular video games with
more robust voice commands, and retail shelves stocked with
affordable, speech-enabled aftermarket navigation systems. It’s
clear that speech is in the mainstream—the focus of this year’s
conference.
Conference Chairs
James A. Larson
VP, Larson Technical Services
Susan L. Hura
VP, Product Support Solutions
Director, SpeechTEK
Program Planning
David Myron, Editorial Director,
Speech technology has become mainstream for organizations
CRM and Speech Technology magazines
seeking operational efficiencies through self-service. For
enterprises, speech enables employees to reset passwords, sign
up for benefits, and find information on company policies and
procedures. In healthcare, doctors have long used speech dictation systems to record symptoms and diagnosis;
healthcare organizations are beginning to use speech to contact patients for appointment management, report test
results, and for healthcare management. Government organizations use speech technologies to better serve their
constituencies. During the 2007 California wildfire season, local government voice systems notified thousands of
homeowners of potential fire danger, which was likely the leading reason for so few deaths. Speech has clearly
made a positive impact on many people and organizations. At SpeechTEK 2008, a variety of organizations will
explain how they are succeeding with speech technology as well.
SpeechTEK 2008 is the world’s biggest speech technology conference and exhibition. Nowhere else can you find
so much information on the latest ideas, technologies, services, and solutions. This year, we offer more leadingedge information and opportunities for interaction with industry movers and shakers.
Keep your company in the speech technology mainstream by attending SpeechTEK 2008 and discussing how
these exciting new technologies will drive the future. This program describes the many activities and opportunities
that will help your company chart a successful course with speech technology.
Welcome to SpeechTEK 2008, our best conference ever.
HEAR THESE TOPICS AND MORE:
w The state of the speech
technology industry
w What you need to know to
get started on a speech project
w Getting management’s
commitment early in the process
w How to monitor and manage your
speech application throughout its
lifecycle
w Techniques for using nontraditional
data to deliver a rapid round of tuning
w How human guides have improved
service for retail self-service
applications
2
Please recycle this program.
PLUS SPECIAL TRACKS:
Meeting Business Goals
with Speech Technology
w A new track designed specifically for
Business Executives and Managers
Advanced Speech
Technologies Symposium
w A 2-day track covering advanced
dialogue techniques, machine
translation, natural language, and more.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
CONFERENCE OVERVIEW
Evening Receptions
SpeechTEK invites attendees with a Networking Pass or above
to a Welcome Reception Monday evening in the Exhibit Hall
from 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. sponsored by Angel.com as well as
the Tuesday evening reception from 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. on
the 9th floor. Mingle with exhibitors, speakers, and conference
attendees while enjoying a glass of wine and hors d’oeuvres.
CD-ROMs
Most sessions are being recorded and CD-ROMs may be purchased at the conference. Visit the Digital Record table (please
ask at the registration desk for exact location) for more information or visit www.digitalrecord.org.
Press Room/Media Center sponsored by
The press area will be available in the Gilbert Room on the 4th
floor Monday from 9:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m., Tuesday from 9:00
a.m. – 6:30 p.m., and Wednesday from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Presentation Links
Get access to many PowerPoint presentations and websites
used in conjunction with the SpeechTEK 2008 sessions! Links
will be posted on the SpeechTEK.com website soon after the
conference.
Sunrise Semester Discussions
SpeechTEK will host early morning discussions for business
professionals, project leaders, designers, and developers to
openly talk about a variety of topics. This is a great opportunity for attendees to network, discuss challenges, and share
ideas with peers and speech technology professionals.
SpeechTEK University
If you are considering deploying a speech application or looking to increase your knowledgebase, be sure to attend a
SpeechTEK University course. SpeechTEK University courses
are in-depth, focused, 3-hour seminars on topics of special
interest to speech technology and information technology professionals taught by experienced instructors. These are separately priced or may be purchased as part of your conference
registration. See pages 8 – 9 for more details.
SpeechTEK Labs
This year marks our first SpeechTEK Labs, in which attendees
can sample the latest speech technology products, talk to
developers, and speak openly to our expert panel of judges
about the technology. These sessions, which take place in the
Exhibit Hall on Tuesday and Wednesday, will provide objective
evaluations of new speech technology and show how speech
is breaking new ground in various industries. Attendees will
have the opportunity to evaluate speech products in three categories: multimodal applications, speech tools, and voice-activated games. As an added benefit, after the lab, the judges
will issue ratings of the tools to provide further guidance. For
complete descriptions, see page 32.
Table of Contents
4 w Keynotes
6 w Conference At-A-Glance
8 w SpeechTEK University
10 w Monday Conference
18 w Tuesday Conference
26 w Wednesday Conference
32 w SpeechTEK Labs
34 w Speaker Directory
40 w Exhibitor List & Floor Plan
42 w Exhibitor Directory
46 w Company Workshops
Continental Breakfast & Coffee Breaks
A continental breakfast will be provided for conference attendees each morning from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. before the
keynote session. Additional coffee breaks will take place each
morning and afternoon. Please check the schedule for exact
times and locations.
Speech Technology Magazine Awards
While at the conference, find out the winners of Speech Technology magazine’s 2008 Speech Industry awards.
Email Stations
Email stations will be open in the Exhibit Hall during regular
exhibit hours for attendees to check their e-mail.
Exhibit Hall Hours
Monday, August 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday, August 19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday, August 20. . . . . . . . . . . . 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Registration Desk Hours
Sunday, August 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Monday, August 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday, August 19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday, August 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . .8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Thursday, August 21 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
3
KEYNOTES
All Keynotes and Sponsored Keynote lunches will take
place in the Broadway Ballroom on the 6th floor.
Preparing for the New Consumer
TUESDAY
Speech in the Mainstream and Beyond
MONDAY
w
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Ray Kurzweil, author of The Age of Spiritual
Machines: When Computers Exceed Human
Intelligence and The Age of Intelligent Machines
We’re living in a world of rapid technological innovation and increasing pervasiveness of information technology. Consumers not only appreciate these advances
in their professional and personal lives, they are demanding it.
What does this mean for those who are driving development
and acceptance of speech technology? Glean insight from one
of the most distinguished speech technology innovators of our
time, Ray Kurzweil, who will share his views on how speech technology will work in conjunction with other emerging technologies to bring us to an age of intelligent machines.
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCHEONS
w
Lior Arussy, author of several books, including
his most recent, Excellence Every Day: Make the
Daily Choice—Inspire Your Employees and
Amaze Your Customers (Information Today, Inc.)
Despite technological innovations, companies
are failing to meet increasing customer expectations. To stay
competitive, organizations must meet customers’ growing
demands by incorporating new ways of thinking, connecting,
and doing business that will create profitable and delightful customer experiences. Lior Arussy is a renowned author; business
visionary; creative catalyst; and president of Strativity Group, a
consultancy which advises Global 2000 companies and emerging businesses around the world. Arussy will address the biggest
customer strategy issues facing organizations today, such as the
new rules of customer engagement, and offer suggestions on
how to better prepare for the new consumer.
The Art of Deception:
Are You in Danger of Being ‘Conned’?
WEDNESDAY
Phone 2.0: The Mobile
Generation at Work Sponsored by
MONDAY
w 12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.
Beatriz V. Infante, President and CEO,
VoiceObjects, Inc.
Remember Me: A Case Study
on Personalized Self-Service Sponsored by
TUESDAY
w 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.
Tracy Griffith, Sr. Manager Customer Technology Reservations
& Premium Services, American Airlines
SpeechTEK Labs
This year marks our first SpeechTEK Labs, in which attendees can sample the latest speech technology products,
talk to developers, and speak openly to our expert panel of
judges about the technology. These sessions, which take
place in the Exhibit Hall on Tuesday and Wednesday, will
provide objective evaluations of new speech technology
and show how speech is breaking new ground in various
industries. Attendees will have the opportunity to evaluate
speech products in three categories: multimodal applications, speech tools, and voice-activated games. As an
added benefit, after the lab, the judges will issue ratings of
the tools to provide further guidance.
4
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
w
8:45 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Kevin Mitnick, author, world-famous (former)
hacker, and security consultant
As more businesses and consumers depend on
speech technology, it’s becoming increasingly
important to protect your investments. With more
than 15 years of experience in exploring computer security, Kevin
Mitnick is a largely self-taught expert in exposing the vulnerabilities of complex operating systems and telecommunications
devices. As the world’s most famous (former) hacker, Mitnick has
been the subject of countless news and magazine articles published throughout the world. Mitnick will share how hackers compromise your security and what you can do about it.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
10:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
10:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Tools for Speech Applications
Multimodal Application Lab
MODERATOR:
Moshe Yudkowsky,
Disaggregate
MODERATOR:
Deborah Dahl, Principal,
Conversational Technologies
1:45 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Voice-Activated Games
MODERATOR:
David Thomson, CTO,
SpeechPhone
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
For complete
descriptions and
company listings,
see page 32.
AD
ALL KEYNOTES WILL BE HELD IN THE BROADWAY BALLROOM, 6TH FLOOR.
w Soho Complex (7th Floor)
MEETING BUSINESS GOALS WITH SPEECH TECHNOLOGY
TRACK B
B102 B101
12:00 p.m. –
1:15 p.m.
2:15 p.m. –
3:00 p.m.
3:15 p.m. –
4:00 p.m.
4:15 p.m. –
5:00 p.m.
Tim Pearce, Mike Bergelson, Bonnie Crater, Monique Bozeman
Planning for Speech
Catherine Zhu, Caroline Nelson
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH
A106 A105 A104 A103
1:15 p.m. –
2:00 p.m.
Mainstream Speech 2008: The State of the Industry
Preventive Medicine: Keeping Your Speech System Healthy
Fran McTernan, Ingo Bors
Agile Speech Projects
Charles Lewis, Leslie Carroll Walker
CCS: Speech in Financial Services
Glen Graham, Ricardo de Carvalho Destro
The Business of Speech Analytics
Michael Codini, Greg Borton, & Cliff LaCoursiere
5:00 p.m. –
7:00 p.m.
9:00 a.m. –
10:00 a.m.
KEYNOTE w Preparing for the New Consumer w
Moshe Yudkowsky, Whitney Quesenberry, Steve Chirokas
Video in the Network and Call Center
Bob Cooper, Rob Marchand
Cross-Channel User Experience
The VUI Backlash
w Sponsored by
Lizanne Kaiser, Elaine Cascio
Speech in CPG/Retail
Tom Scott, Michael Jacks
In the Exhibit Hall
w Sponsored by Angel.com
w Empire Complex (7th Floor)
VUI DESIGN PRINCIPLES & TECHNIQUES
How Do You VUI?
Bruce Balentine & Ken Rehor, David Suenderman & Ethan Levine
Inaugural Meeting of the Association for Voice Interaction Design
w A Case Study on Personalized Self-Service w
B205
Ahmed Bouzid, Simonie Wilson, Nick Ezzo
RECEPTION
Tracy Griffith
Business Problems, VUI Answers
Mark Webb, Daniel Padgett
VUI Design for Multimodal Applications
David Thornton, Juan Gilbert
Driving the Conversation Forward in the Face of Errors
Simsar; Bloom & Liscombe; Peterson
w On the 9th Floor
KEYNOTE w The Art of Deception: Are You in Danger of Being ‘Conned’? w
Kevin Mitnick
BREAK w Visit the Exhibits
w Soho Complex (7th Floor)
MEETING BUSINESS GOALS WITH SPEECH TECHNOLOGY
TRACK B
B302 B301
w Empire Complex (7th Floor)
VUI DESIGN PRINCIPLES & TECHNIQUES
TRACK A
Customer Satisfaction 2008
Lynda Kate Smith, Michael Codini
DTMF Versus Speech
Darla Tucker, Matt Whipple
Making VUIs Even Better
Patrick Nguyen, Bob Cooper
Designing for Spanish
Sondra Ahlen, Jose Elizondo
LUNCH BREAK w Visit the Exhibits
Security for Speech
Steven Cawn, Kris Herrin
The Crystal Ball
Judith Markowitz, Daniel Hong, Bill Meisel
Sunrise Semester Discussions w 8:00 a.m. – 8:50 a.m.
SpeechTEK will host early morning discussions in the Royale Room
(6th floor) for business professionals, project leaders, designers, and
developers to openly talk about a variety of topics.
6
w
BREAK w Visit the Exhibits
A304 A303
2:45 p.m. –
3:30 p.m.
Charles Galles, Mary Constance Parks
Lior Arussy
B204 B203
A204 A203
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH
12:30 p.m. –
1:45 p.m.
1:45 p.m. –
2:30 p.m.
Eduardo Olvera, Matt Prather
How May I Help You?
A302 A301
11:45 a.m. –
12:30 p.m.
James Mesbur & Karen Moylé, Rita Dhruve
Lessons in Multimodal Usability
B202 B201
Speech: Thinking Out of the Box
10:00 a.m. –
10:45 a.m.
10:45 a.m. –
11:30 a.m.
Universal Commands
TRACK B
5:30 p.m. –
7:00 p.m.
8:45 a.m. –
10:00 a.m.
Peter Krogh
BREAK w Visit the Exhibits
3:30 p.m. –
4:15 p.m.
4:15 p.m. –
5:15 p.m.
Beatriz V. Infante
Reverse Navigation Hands-On Session
w Soho Complex (7th Floor)
MEETING BUSINESS GOALS WITH SPEECH TECHNOLOGY
A205
2:45 p.m. –
3:30 p.m.
David Martin, Jessica Stevens & Jenny Burr
TRACK A
12:30 p.m. –
1:45 p.m.
1:45 p.m. –
2:30 p.m.
Managing Client/Vendor Relationships
A202 A201
11:45 a.m. –
12:30 p.m.
Jenni McKienzie, Moshe Yudkowsky
EXHIBIT HALL GRAND OPENING & WELCOME RECEPTION
10:00 a.m. –
10:45 a.m.
10:45 a.m. –
11:30 a.m.
What End Users Really Want
w Phone 2.0: The Mobile Generation at Work w
w Sponsored by
B106 B105 B104 B103
11:15 a.m. –
12:00 p.m.
Ray Kurzweil
w Empire Complex (7th Floor)
VUI DESIGN PRINCIPLES & TECHNIQUES
TRACK A
B304 B303
10:15 a.m. –
11:00 a.m.
WELCOME & OPENING KEYNOTE w Speech in the Mainstream and Beyond w
A102 A101
9:00 a.m. –
10:00 a.m.
Happy Together? Speech & Touchtone
David Attwater, Phil Shinn
The Ultimate VUI Showdown
Balentine, Bouzid, Brill, Kaiser, Krogh & Strand
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
w Baggia
DISCUSSION 1
Emotion in Speech Technology
DISCUSSION 2
The Effectiveness of Marketing Messages
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
w Rogers
CONFERENCE AT-A-GLANCE
w Majestic Complex (6th Floor)
ADVANCED SPEECH TECHNOLOGIES SYMPOSIUM
TRACK D
C102 C101
Advanced ASR: A Global Perspective
D102 D101
C106 C105 C104 C103
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
TRACK C
Success With Machine Translation
w Shubert Complex (6th Floor)
DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT
Roberto Pieraccini
Application of Advanced ASR
Marsal Gavalda, Vlad Sejnoha
Matthew Yuschik, Leah Eyler
Speaking and Listening to Mobile Devices
Matthew Yuschik
w Phone 2.0: The Mobile Generation at Work w
w Sponsored by
D106 D105 D104 D103
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH
Design Methodologies and Tools
Hannah Grap, Imed Zitouni
Advanced Dialogue’s Growing Sophistication
Phillip Hunter, David Thomson
Natural Language Processing Techniques
Peter Trompetter, Daniel O’Sullivan
IVR Virtualization
Rob Kassel, Nava Shaked
Beatriz V. Infante
New Standard Languages for Developing Speech Applications
Paolo Baggia, Jim Barnett
Advanced Techniques for Using Grammars
Dominique Boucher, David Claiborn
Integrating Speech Technologies With Enterprise Applications
Michael Codini, John Oh
The Impact of W3C Standard Languages
R.J. Auburn, Ken Rehor
EXHIBIT HALL GRAND OPENING & WELCOME RECEPTION
w
In the Exhibit Hall
w Sponsored by Angel.com
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
BREAK w Visit the Exhibits
w Majestic Complex (6th Floor)
ADVANCED SPEECH TECHNOLOGIES SYMPOSIUM
TRACK D
C202 C201
D202 D201
w Shubert Complex (6th Floor)
DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT
TRACK C TRACK C
Natural Language Processing: Automaticity
Mark Pfeiffer, Emmett Coin
Enhanced VUI: Context-Sensitive Dialogue
Sunil Issar, Susan Boyce
Dan York
Personalization and Context
Patrick Nguyen, Steve Pollock
w A Case Study on Personalized Self-Service w
w Sponsored by
D204 D203
C204 C203
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH
Securing CCXML and VoiceXML Applications
Enhanced VUI: Dynamic Response Generation
Ahmed Bouzid, Phil Shinn
Advances in Automotive Speech
Roberto Sicconi, Tom Schalk
Tracy Griffith
CCS: Speech in Healthcare
Val Nenov, David Engelhardt
CCS: Speech in Government/Utilities
Marge Vizcarra & James Whitten, Michael Roberts
D205
C205
BREAK w Visit the Exhibits
Ancillary Transcription Techniques
Michael Picheny, Jordan Cohen
RECEPTION
CCS: Speech in Telecom
Manohar Kesireddy, Fred MacKenzie, Charles Giordano
w On the 9th Floor
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
BREAK w Visit the Exhibits
w Majestic Complex (6th Floor)
TODAY’S SPEECH TECHNOLOGIES
TRACK D
C302 C301
D302 D301
w Shubert Complex (6th Floor)
DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT
TRACK C
Video and Speech
Andrew Fuller, Valentine Matula
CCS: Speech in Automotive
Ben Miners, Christian McCarrick
CCS: Speech in Financial Services/Insurance
Brent Sparks & Remus Siclovan
Testing
Jim Jenkins; Judi Halperin & Dennis Jakobsen
D304 D303
C304 C303
LUNCH BREAK w Visit the Exhibits
Multimodal Standards and Applications
Deborah Dahl & Ingmar Kliche; Raj Tumuluri
Developing and Testing Multimodal Applications
David Pelland, Cliff McEnery
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
DISCUSSION 3
Richard Grant, Chris Weeks
Tuning Tips
Yves Normandin, Stephen Keller
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
Speaker Identification and Verification
DISCUSSION 4 It Ain’t Shakespeare…Or Is It?
CCS: Speech in Customer Service
w Markowitz
w Auckland & Polkosky
w Dahl
DISCUSSION 5 W3C Multimodal Working Group
DISCUSSION 6
Speech Development Teams
w Shaked
w Tranter & Turney
w Brinsmead
DISCUSSION 7 Project & Perfect
DISCUSSION 8 Analytics
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
7
SpeechTEK University
At-A-Glance
SUNDAY, AUGUST 17
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
STKU-1
Introduction to Voice User
Interface Design
Eduardo Olvera
STKU-2
Introduction to Speech Technologies
James A. Larson
THURSDAY, AUGUST 21
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
STKU-3
Introduction to Grammar Writing
Jenni McKienzie & Judi Halperin
STKU-4
Guerilla Tactics in VUI Design
Melanie Polkosky
SpeechTEK University courses provide
in-depth, 3-hour seminars on compelling
topics for speech technology and information
technology professionals. Experienced
speech technology practitioners teach each
class in an intimate classroom setting to
foster an educational and structured learning
experience. If you are considering deploying
a speech application, looking to increase your
knowledgebase in one of the key areas
below, or you simply need a speech
technology refresher, attend a SpeechTEK
University course. These courses are
separately priced or may be purchased as
part of your conference registration.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 17
STKU-5
Natural Language
Introduction to Voice User Interface Design
Deborah Dahl
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
STKU-6
Tuning Speech Applications for
Maximum Performance
Joe Alwan
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
STKU-7
VUI, GUI, and MUI: Design Challenges
in Multimodal Interaction
Catherine Zhu & Julie Underdahl
STKU-1
Eduardo Olvera, Senior User Interface Designer,
Nuance Communications, Inc.
Jump-start your knowledge in the field of voice user interface design! This
session is designed to quickly get those new to VUI design up-to-speed so
they can make the most of the Principles of VUI Design track at the conference. This tutorial will illustrate why VUI design is the make-or-break factor for speech applications and how to make smart design decisions from
Day 1. Learn how to encourage customers to accept and use speech
automation by focusing on the perceptions and reactions of end users
throughout the design process. This tutorial will cover the basics in VUI
design: writing effective prompts; creating efficient, no-nonsense call flows;
and using evaluation techniques to learn what real customers think.
Introduction to Speech Technologies
STKU-2
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
STKU-8
User-Centered Evaluation Techniques
for Speech Applications
Susan Hura
STKU-9
Stop Rude Calls: A CCXML Tutorial for
VoiceXML Veterans
Moshe Yudkowsky
STKU-10
Speaker Identification and Verification
Judith Markowitz
8
James A. Larson, Vice President, Larson Technical Services
Designed for attendees new to the speech technology area, this tutorial
provides an overview of today’s key speech technologies. What are the
major differences between dictation and conversational recognition
engines? Should you use statistical language models (SLMs) or speech
grammars, and do they need semantic tags? Should you use concatenative or parameter-based speech synthesis engines? Do speaker identification and verification really work? Is there a need for touchtone recognition
in interactive voice response systems? Who drives the speech dialogue?
The user, the computer, or both? Where can natural language processing
technologies such as natural language recognition, machine translation,
response generation, and summarization be used today? Can speech technologies be embedded in mobile devices, or do they require a backend
server? Should you use POTS, VoIP, or some other communication strategy? Untangle the voice standards alphabet: VoiceXML, SSML, SRGS,
CCXML, PLS, and SCXML.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
SpeechTEK University
THURSDAY, AUGUST 21
VUI, GUI, and MUI: Design Challenges
in Multimodal Interaction
STKU-7
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
STKU-3
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Jenni McKienzie, VUI Designer, Travelocity
Judi Halperin, Speech Engineer, Avaya
This course will arm you with guiding principles and best practices for writing GRXML grammars. We will begin with a quick overview of grxml structure so we can analyze sample grammars. Plus, we’ll examine some cases
when applying best practices really isn’t best (there’s always a loophole!).
We will consider grammars throughout the design, development, testing,
and tuning of speech applications. Once you have basic grammars down,
how can you add cool, advanced stuff to further constrain your grammar
and optimize recognition? This course is for VUI designers, developers, managers, analysts, QA specialists, and others who want to better understand
how to use grammars to boost performance of their speech applications.
Catherine Zhu, Senior Voice User Interface Design Engineer, Intervoice
Julie Underdahl, Senior Voice User Interface Design Engineer, Intervoice
This course focuses on the aspects of design that need to be considered
when creating a multimodal application, such as user modality preference,
conflicting mental models, variable usage environments, and technology
limitations. This session will cover the successes and failures discovered
during the design process for a multimodal application that allowed mobile
phone users to order accessories over the phone. The session will also
explore the challenges even an experienced GUI or VUI designer faces when
attempting to design an effective, user-friendly multimodal application.
User-Centered Evaluation Techniques
for Speech Applications
STKU-8
SpeechTEK University
Introduction to Grammar Writing
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Susan Hura, Principal, SpeechUsability
Guerilla Tactics in VUI Design
STKU-4
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Melanie Polkosky, Human Factors Psychologist/Senior Consultant, IBM
VUI designers often have to justify their design decisions to clients, peers,
management, and others. But what makes a compelling argument for a
user experience design? How do you explain user behavior and preferences? How do you know what to prioritize? This course will show you how
to make the best use of available research or do some research of your
own quickly and under the radar! This session for advanced VUI designers will focus on fast but effective techniques for gathering data in social
psychology, interpersonal communication, and service delivery as a basis
for making design decisions, responding to feedback, and communicating with clients.
Natural Language
STKU-5
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Deborah Dahl, Principal, Conversational Technologies
Natural language processing is being used in more applications to support
increasingly sophisticated speech dialogues. This tutorial will introduce natural language processing and its role in speech applications. Attendees
will learn what natural language is; techniques for processing natural language; how to use statistical language models (SLMs) and speech grammars with semantic tags for processing natural language; and about emerging standards and research and their roles in future applications. Attendees
will have the opportunity to develop tagged grammars illustrating the techniques discussed in the tutorial.
Tuning Speech Applications
for Maximum Performance
STKU-6
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Joe Alwan, VP/GM AVOKE Caller Experience Analytics, BBN Technologies
Methods for tuning speech applications have grown and evolved within the
industry. Just as holistic views of the application replaced narrow efforts
focused only on the recognition engine, the newest approaches step back
even further from the engine and examine caller success from dialing to
hangup. This course will teach you how to manage a successful tuning
project to get maximum value from your speech applications. Topics include
setting tuning objectives, understanding caller behavior and intent, measuring disatisfiers and inefficiencies, and identifying the highest impact tuning opportunities. Using actual case studies and class exercises, the course
will cover a framework and methodology that you can use to manage both
in-house and vendor-partner tuning projects.
VUI designers and their clients recognize the importance of collecting user
input and including it in the process of designing voice user interfaces to
speech applications. For many organizations, usability testing has become
a required part of the design process, but usability tests are not always practical or even warranted. How do you evaluate a speech application from a
user-centered perspective when usability testing isn’t feasible? This course
presents a range of methods and techniques for evaluating speech applications beyond standard usability testing. Learn how to quickly measure
the important aspects of user behavior and perception to make fast and
effective improvements to your voice user interface. Discover which evaluation techniques will provide the best data for your situation and how to
build continuous opportunities for evaluation into your design and development process. This course is intended for VUI designers, developers,
and managers who want to learn how to make data-based decisions about
their speech applications.
Stop Rude Calls:
A CCXML Tutorial for VoiceXML Veterans
STKU-9
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Moshe Yudkowsky, President, Disaggregate
Just in time for the elections, here is an application that blocks automated
telephone calls. This workshop is for people who understand VoiceXML
and want to learn about its companion language, CCXML, also known as
voice browser call control. CCXML provides greatly enhanced telephony
capabilities and integrates with VoiceXML to provide more powerful applications. In this workshop, we’ll discuss the basic concepts of CCXML and
then build a “stop rude calls” application that intercepts incoming phone
calls to determine if they’re from a live person. Bring your laptop and take
home the “stop rude calls” application for possible extension into a call
routing or answering machine.
Speaker Identification and Verification
STKU-10
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Judith Markowitz, President, J. Markowitz, Consultants
Join us for an informative session covering the A–Z of speaker biometrics.
We’ll look at technology, applications, and markets. Along the way we’ll experience what it is like to use the technology and answer questions such as
these: How do speaker biometrics work? Can a tape recorder fool a speakerverification system? Can a professional mimic fool these systems? How do
speaker biometrics compare with other biometrics? Who is using it and why?
How should I explain the system to my customers/employees? This session
presents no-nonsense concepts and real-life examples of what works!
BREAK
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
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Planning for Speech
Keynote
A102
11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
MODERATOR: Nava Shaked, CRM and CC Practice Leader, IBM
Speech in the Mainstream
and Beyond
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
w
Broadway Ballroom, 6th floor
Ray Kurzweil, author of The Age of Spiritual Machines: When
Computers Exceed Human Intelligence and The Age of Intelligent
Machines
We’re living in a world of rapid technological innovation and increasing pervasiveness of information technology. Consumers not only
appreciate these advances in their professional and personal lives,
they are demanding it. What does this mean for those who are driving development and acceptance of speech technology? Glean
insight from one of the most distinguished speech technology innovators of our time, Ray Kurzweil, who will share his views on how
speech technology will work in conjunction with other emerging technologies to bring us to an age of intelligent machines.
TRACK A
Catherine Zhu, Senior Voice User Interface Design Engineer, Intervoice
The decision to move to speech has been made, and now it’s just a matter of logistics before the project can officially start. How can you profitably
use this time? Learning speech technology basics, beginning interdepartmental communication, and gathering data about your business and potential callers are just a few factors to consider for managing a smooth transition. This session will explore proactive steps to take as a company when
you know speech is coming.
Caroline Nelson, Speech Solutions Team Technical Lead, Nortel
MEETING BUSINESS GOALS
WITH SPEECH TECHNOLOGY
A101
10:15 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
MODERATOR: Tim Moynihan, Vice President, Global Marketing & Sales
Support, Envox
Speech is a mainstream technology, used by millions across the world every
day to get information, perform transactions, and manage their daily lives.
What do end users really think of speech technology? What are the hot buttons in the speech vendor community? What do organizations using speech
have to say about the technology? Panelists in this session have completed
ambitious client, vendor, and end-user surveys of the speech industry. The
resulting data can tell us a great deal about the current state of the speech
industry and where we need to be tomorrow to continue to grow and thrive.
Come with questions and be prepared for a spirited debate of the findings
on the state of speech in 2008.
Year 2 Speech in the Mainstream:
Stakeholder Views From 360 Degrees
Tim Pearce, Global Solutions Manager, Self Service, Dimension Data
Mike Bergelson, Director, Product Management, Cisco
Are vendors and end users on the same page about speech recognition
applications? This discussion picks up from where SpeechTEK 2007 left
off, showcasing the results of the global Alignment Index, which tracks the
views of 1,200 speech-app consumers and 128 speech vendors to see how
closely they’re aligned.
VoiceXML and IVR Adoption for Self Service Portals:
The European Mobile Operators Perspective
Monique Bozeman, Independent Marketing Consultant, Monique Bozeman
Consulting
Bonnie Crater, Senior VP Marketing, VoiceObjects
According to research by Datamonitor, VoiceXML revenues and port shipments in both North America and EMEA surpassed those of traditional IVR
for the first time in 2007. VoiceObjects recently sponsored research to “take
the temperature” of the European Union’s highly competitive market of
mobile network operators. This presentation will highlight those survey findings, including operators’ customer service challenges, their plans for
improving customer satisfaction, and how they will differentiate themselves
through self-service offerings as they move from the customer acquisition
to customer retention phase in a rapidly consolidating market.
10
Speech Is Coming: What Do I Do Now?
Preparation Leads to Success
w Soho Complex (7th Floor)
Mainstream Speech 2008:
The State of the Industry
Your organization is making the leap into speech technology—congratulations!
But what happens next? This session will arm you with information about steps
you can take to prepare for a speech project’s development. Learn what data
will ease the transition to speech and what team resources will be needed to
keep a speech project on track. Learn how defining success criteria up front
can provide a framework for decisions throughout the project and drive a positive experience from the start. Speakers in this session will help you ensure
that you’re ready for speech when your project begins.
What do customers need to know in preparation for a speech application
deployment? An awareness of the caller base and a comprehensive understanding of your back-end data are just the beginning. Other elements,
such as involving the right players and setting success criteria at the start
of the project, also play a huge role. A detailed discussion of these items
and more add up to the top 10 tips for deploying speech.
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH w Sponsored by
Phone 2.0: The Mobile Generation at Work
12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. w Broadway Ballroom, 6th floor
Beatriz V. Infante, President and CEO, VoiceObjects, Inc.
Phone self-service has evolved with today's new generation of
mobile users who expect a much higher level of phone selfservice than the common one-size fits all menu structures. The
presentation shows how Phone 2.0 is now becoming the new
standard for phone self-service with companies today and how consumers
are now enjoying personalized self-service experiences over the phone,
just like they have over the Web for many years. In addition, new phone
channels are being adopted by many companies for text, multimedia and
mobile Web interactions.
Preventive Medicine:
Keeping Your Speech System Healthy
A103
1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Sunil Issar, Director, Convergys
Your speech application is up and running—now you can relax, right?
Wrong! Speech applications are dynamic entities that require lots of ongoing TLC to perform at peak effectiveness. Experts in this session will teach
you how to monitor and manage your speech application throughout its
lifecycle and how to maintain excellent performance without breaking the
budget. If you currently have a speech application, this session will tell you
what you need to know to keep it on track for the long haul.
Now What? Managing and Maintaining Speech Deployments
Fran McTernan, Speech Operations Lead, Nortel
Businesses commonly turn to technology providers and vendors to get their
initial speech deployments up and running. But once the system is earning its keep, how should you maintain it? What skills does a team need to
keep up with changing and growing business needs? This session is
geared toward IT managers responsible for managing and maintaining
speech systems, focusing on the high-level skills and knowledge required
to do so.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
MONDAY,
MONDAY, AUGUST
AUGUST 18
20
Strategies to Cost-Effectively Maintain
Self-Service Phone Portals
Understanding the Impact of Customer
Experience on Your Business
CCS Glen Graham, SVP, Business Operations, Bank of America
Self-service phone applications often go unmodified due to increasingly
complex IT and business process requirements. The result is a limited ability to adapt voice self-service dialogues in real time based on a caller’s
behavior and a restricted flexibility to accommodate change requirements.
This presentation will discuss business conditions driving modifications to
self-service phone portals, presenting examples of how to use a modular
approach and services-oriented architecture (SOA) for maintaining them.
This presentation will explain how Bank of America examines customer
experiences across multiple channels (IVR, agent, web, etc.) to identify the
exact events resulting in customer confusion and frustration. Learn how
Bank of America uses this information to prioritize enhancements that maximize user adoption and customer retention.
A Voice Solution for ATM Using TTS
CCS Ricardo de Carvalho Destro, Technology Director, Volans Technology
Agile Speech Projects
A104
2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Phillip Hunter, Vice President, Interaction Design,
SpeechCycle
Agile software development is gaining wider acceptance for the benefits it
offers over traditional waterfall development methods. Agile development
allows an organization to have code up and running more quickly and to
be more responsive to changes by developing software in discrete chunks
that can be easily modified. How do agile development processes impact
speech projects? Is it possible to design a VUI that fits within the constraints
of agile development? Speakers in this session explore the benefits and
challenges of agile development for speech projects.
Adopting Software Engineering Practices for VUI Development
Charles Lewis, Senior Technical Trainer, Bloomberg, LP
As call flows become more complex, the discipline of software engineering can offer guidance for the creation and maintenance of robust, scalable products. This session will describe the successful application of standard software development practices, including source-code control,
coding standards, code walk-throughs, and the application of object-oriented programming principles to the development and ongoing improvement of highly complex call flows. The application of these processes and
practices to VUI development presents unique challenges that will be discussed.
Flexible Design in Support of More Rapid Deployment
A TTS based solution for ATM equipments will be presented in this session.
This solution aims to allow blind customers (or with low vision), to use ATM
machines for banking transactions as withdraws, balance etc. This multi-platform solution was designed to support many languages and to be customized
with low impact of development in the Bank’s transactional applications.
The Business of Speech Analytics
A106
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
Ingo Bors, Industry Consultant, Ibostar Consulting Services
4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Dan Miller, Senior Analyst, Opus Research
Roundtable: Building Better Applications
and Driving Business Value With Analytics
PANELISTS:
Michael Codini, CTO and Co-Founder, VoiceObjects
Greg Borton, VP of Analytics, Nuance Communications
Cliff LaCoursiere, Senior Vice President of Business Development, CallMiner
As self-service phone applications mature and become broadly deployed
to reduce costs and increase customer self-service, there is a critical need
for companies to understand how their customers are using these systems.
Despite the tremendous interest in business intelligence and analytics
among mainstream IT, the call center and speech industries remain woefully behind. This panel will investigate the role of analytics in three key areas
of call center technology: self-service, speech, and customer care. Attendees will learn how new business intelligence and analytics technologies
are helping customers build better applications, improve customer service,
and drive business value.
Leslie Carroll Walker, Staff Engineer, VUI Design, Intervoice
As customers move away from waterfall methods of deployment, designers may need to have several different design initiatives under way simultaneously. This presentation will look at some practical approaches to the
design process in support of more rapid deployment models. Documentation options, project management options, and other workarounds will
be offered and discussed. This presentation will be particularly useful for
consulting designers who are working on large, ongoing initiatives, but
should also prove helpful for smaller initiatives and in-house designers.
Speech in Financial Services
A105
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Ken Rehor, Founder, VoiceXML Forum
Banks and financial institutions are adopting speech technology. This session presents two different uses of speech technology. Bank of America
describes how it uses analytics to identify customer behavior and experience to improve customer treatment and ultimately increase financial benefit. And Volans Technology describes how it uses speech synthesis technology to assist low-vision customers in using ATMs in any of several
languages.
Breakfast & Coffee Breaks
WELCOME RECEPTION w Sponsored by Angel.com
5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. in the Exhibit Hall
TRACK B
w Empire Complex (7th Floor)
VUI DESIGN PRINCIPLES AND TECHNIQUES
What End Users Really Want
B101
10:15 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
MODERATOR: Juan Gilbert, T-SYS Distinguished Associate Professor,
Auburn University
In speech projects, requirements are sometimes thought of as a laundry
list of items to be handed from the client to the vendor building the speech
application. Because clients don’t know VUI, requirements are sometimes
less than sensible. Moreover, requirements rarely include the perspective
of the application’s end user. Therefore, building an application on such
requirements often produces applications that are poorly adopted by users
and thus fail to meet client goals. Experts in this session will explore why
requirements assembled in a vacuum are insufficient and discuss methods for discovering truly meaningful requirements.
The Big Gap: What Customers Want
Versus What Customers Get
Moshe Yudkowski, President, Disaggregate
A continental breakfast will be provided for conference attendees
each morning from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. before the keynote session.
Additional coffee breaks will take place each morning and afternoon.
Please check the schedule for exact times and locations.
When someone calls your office and you’re not there, he might want to
know when you’ll be back, whether you received a file he sent you, and
what you thought about his proposal. What this person gets, however, is
something entirely different: voicemail. In this session, we’ll discuss the
huge gap between what customers want and what customers get, and offer
ideas on how to create services that actually deliver what they want.
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
11
Unearthing the Real Requirements
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
Jenni McKienzie, Senior Business Solutions Advisor, Travelocity
VUI designers often receive puzzling requests from clients. Valid reasons
typically drive their requests, but the businesses haven’t come up with the
right solutions. We’ll dissect several real requests for IVR modifications to
uncover their underlying problems, and then we’ll examine better alternatives than the ones proposed. Finally, we will look at how to go back to these
clients and sell them on your plans.
Managing Client/Vendor Relationships
B102
11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Darla Tucker, Principal, Global Consulting Services,
Intervoice
VUI designers are the keepers of a great deal of highly specialized knowledge about speech technology and the way users interact with it. While
VUI designers are hired specifically for this specialized knowledge, clients
regularly challenge VUI specialist design decisions and insist on prompts
and call flows that make VUI designers cringe. This session is about finding the balance between providing expert guidance to clients and accepting requests that will compromise the design. Learn how to decode client
requests to understand the real intent, include clients in the design process,
and gently steer them toward solutions that will meet their ultimate goals.
It’s OK to Tell Clients They’re Wrong
Jessica Stevens, Senior Engineer, VUI Design, Intervoice
Jenny Burr, Manager, Speech Technology, Global Consulting Services,
Intervoice
Dealing with customers is a large part of our jobs in VUI design and tuning. We have all run into differences with our customers, and both our success stories and cautionary tales can be informative. This session will provide real-world examples of trying to find that sweet spot between business
and caller needs, demonstrating the importance of making the effort to represent our expertise in the industry and reminding clients why they hired
us in the first place.
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH w Sponsored by
Phone 2.0: The Mobile Generation at Work
12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. w Broadway Ballroom, 6th floor
Beatriz V. Infante, President and CEO, VoiceObjects, Inc.
Reverse Navigation Hands-On Session
Caution Ahead: Voice User Interface Is a Two-Way Street
1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
David Martin, Principal Consultant, Speech Engineering, Avaya
MODERATOR: Jenni McKienzie, Senior Business Solutions Advisor,
Travelocity
Peter Krogh, Speech Mechanic, SpeechCycle
The goal of this presentation is to facilitate critical thinking about deploying user-centric business solutions. The discussion will cite recent applications in which business processes had the potential to detract from the user
experience, focusing on how a well-designed user interface accounts for
both business and customer goals and how the attitudes of business stakeholders and VUI designers can affect the success of a speech application.
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You also will be encouraged to challenge yourself and your vendors to make
courageous design decisions that will empower customers with excellent
self-service.
B103
How do you navigate back to a previous state in a VUI? Unlike webpages,
VUIs have no “back” button that transparently takes users back a single
step in the interaction. Does a simple speech analog to the back button
make sense in a VUI? How, and when, should this functionality be offered
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
Universal Commands
B104
2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Charles Galles, Speech Scientist, Multimedia Applications,
Nortel Networks
Is there a set of commands that all speech applications should share? If
we offer users help throughout a speech application, does it do any good?
This session explores the highly debated issues of whether we need universal commands across applications, determining what these commands
should be, and whether universal commands truly benefit users of speech
applications. Join us as two VUI practitioners share evidence for how to
handle universals in VUI design.
leaves users perplexed, annoyed, and wondering why they can’t get there
from here. Learn why interface symmetry is desirable, as well as how to
plan for it, champion the cause, and educate both callers and clients as to
its possibilities and limitations.
How May I Help You?
B106
4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Elizabeth Strand, Director of User Experience Design,
Tellme
Statistical language models allow us to pose open-ended questions and
allow users to give more free-form responses. This sounds simple, but for
“How may I help you?” questions, the devil is in the details. The exact formulation of the question can have a huge impact on users’ responses, and
conversely, knowing how users respond can help craft more effective openended questions. In this session, we explore the details of writing openended prompts and analyzing user responses to these questions.
People Say the Darnedest Things
Should Universal Commands Be Universal?
Rita Dhruve, Speech Solutions Specialist, Nuance
Charles Galles, Speech Scientist, Multimedia Applications, Nortel
Networks
A small set of commands is becoming a de facto standard for universal
commands in VUI design. However, guidelines for how and when to offer
universal commands, and what response should be expected of the system, don’t exist. This session will present examples from current speech
applications to demonstrate how to successfully implement a set of universal VUI commands.
Open prompts (such as “How may I help you?”) produce interesting
responses. This discussion analyzes responses based on caller profiles
and VUI design issues across several applications. The data presented will
help you understand how to deliver an excellent caller experience, drive
customer loyalty, and strengthen your brand.
Does Universal Help Help?
Natural Language Questions for Technical Support
Applications: A Winning Strategy
James Mesbur, Voice Interaction Designer/Speech Scientist Engineer,
SpeechCycle
Karen Moylé, Voice Interaction Designer, SpeechCycle
Universal commands are intended to give a caller control over a speech
interaction and provide a consistent approach to tasks. But universal help,
as it is typically implemented, has never delivered on this promise. As a
result, we have implemented a set of context-sensitive help options, offered
only when extra help makes sense. We’ll discuss how this approach allows
for simpler grammars, lets callers educate themselves when they feel it’s
necessary, and results in a marked increase in dialogue object success,
call completion, and caller satisfaction.
Lessons in Multimodal Usability
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
to users? Should reverse navigation be universal or are specific instantiations required for different applications? Explore the nuances of reverse
navigation in this hands-on session. After a brief introduction, be prepared
to work together in small groups to explore this issue and to present solutions to the audience.
Mary Constance Parks, Senior VUI Designer, Nuance Communications
For a recent technical support application, the goal was to improve the
accuracy of an existing natural language question and back-off menu. Three
different designs were created to challenge the existing flow, one of which
significantly improved both accuracy and automation. The characteristics
of the winning design will be presented, along with takeaways for designing technical support applications and natural language questions.
WELCOME RECEPTION w Sponsored by Angel.com
5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. in the Exhibit Hall
B105
w Majestic Complex (6th Floor)
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
TRACK C
MODERATOR: Catherine Zhu, Senior Voice User Interface Design
Engineer, Intervoice
ADVANCED SPEECH
TECHNOLOGIES SYMPOSIUM
Applications using speech and visual modalities have arrived and present
special challenges to user interface designers. Speech and visual modalities ideally work in concert in multimodal applications, allowing the user
flexibility in information input and output. When multimodal goes wrong,
however, speech and visual modalities can interfere with each other, competing for the user’s attention and making multimodal less effective than
unimodal applications. Speakers in this session share their experiences in
multimodal design and give recommendations for helping multimodal applications live up to expectations.
Multimodal Speech Usability Lessons
Eduardo Olvera, Senior User Interface Designer, Nuance Communications
Multimodal user interfaces can combine visual-, touch-, gesture-, and location-based features. But what happens when you add speech recognition
capabilities to designs that are so new they lack a clear set of usability guidelines? Based on actual multimodal speech usability testing, this session will
discuss the challenges of multimodal design and provide recommendations for successful implementations.
Advanced ASR: A Global Perspective
C101
10:15 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
MODERATOR: Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, ATX
Roberto Pieraccini, Chief Technology Officer, SpeechCycle
This session provides a global overview on the state of research in the many
areas related to speech and language, such as speech recognition, language understanding, spoken dialogue systems, speech summarization,
speech-to-speech translation, audio indexing, speech synthesis, speaker
verification, and supporting technologies. Learn about the wider speech
technology research community, the conferences, the organizations, and
the publications. Finally, learn about breakthroughs in advanced technologies where academic research is currently making progress and their potential impact in the commercial world.
Application of Advanced ASR
C102
11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
You Can’t Get There From Here, But Why Not?
MODERATOR: Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, ATX
Matt Prather, Staff Engineer, VUI Design, Intervoice
This session focuses on speech recognition technology used to complete
challenging tasks such as automated directory assistance, address entry,
understanding newscasts, and the handling of conversational speech in
mobile devices. In addition to exploring key advances in core speech recognition technology, performance results from real-world deployments will be
In an increasingly multimodal world, users expect a voice interface to do
the same things, in the same ways, with the same results, as the desktop
and web-based interfaces they’re already using. But, all too often, functionality can be radically different across a company’s various interfaces, which
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
13
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
presented and analyzed to show trends in automation rates, usage patterns, and where the technological gaps arise.
Using Phonetic Audio Search Technology to
Streamline Video Search and Editing
Speech Technology and Automated Translation:
A Winning Combination
Marsal Gavalda, Director of Incubation, Nexidia
The current explosive growth of online video necessitates improved ways to
manage and navigate such audiovisual content. This presentation will discuss the role that semantic computing can play in the editing, publishing,
syndication, and discoverability of online videos. The session will present a
concrete, successfully deployed application that applies speech, language,
and semantic technologies to automatically convert a newscast from its fulllength broadcast (long form) to segments containing single stories (web
clips) and prepares such clips for online publishing and semantically aware
syndication. Technologies discussed include audio/speech, voice and music
detection, phonetic indexing and search, language/semantic technologies,
document classification, and search query analysis and validation.
Hannah Grap, Marketing Communications Manager, Language Weaver
Speech technology and translation technology have advanced to new levels in recent years, and it is now possible to deliver real-time human communication across multiple languages. This presentation will look at existing speech and automated translation solutions for video broadcast
monitoring and speech-to-speech translation, along with requirements for
success to ensure usable translations of spoken information. New opportunities for pairing these technologies in customer support and intelligence
applications will also be discussed.
Translingual Automatic Language Exploration
Imed Zitouni, Sr. Research Scientist, IBM Research
Performance of Advanced Speech Technology
Vlad Sejnoha, Vice President, Chief Scientist, Nuance Communications
Steady advances in core recognition technology over the past decade have
resulted in an impressive expansion of speech application capabilities. The
next few years promise to be even more dramatic, with speech interfaces
poised to jump to new levels of power and usability. This presentation will
explore factors shaping the next generation of speech technology, including the unprecedented quantity of user data being generated by current
deployments; the difference between core and user-perceived accuracy;
the drive toward lowering application development and maintenance cost;
novel and challenging use cases such as web search and voicemail-to-text;
and new demands on ASR flexibility stemming from deployments distributed mobile environments.
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH w Sponsored by
Phone 2.0: The Mobile Generation at Work
12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. w Broadway Ballroom, 6th floor
Beatriz V. Infante, President and CEO, VoiceObjects, Inc.
Success With Machine Translation
C103
1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Bill Scholz, President, NewSpeech LLC
As the importance of timely access to information grows, the necessity for
overcoming language barriers becomes ever more prominent. Increased
use of statistically based computational methods and techniques evolved
from coupling speech recognition and understanding to create solutions
Customer Case Studies
By Customers For Customers
Customer case study presentations marked with a Customer Case
Study icon ( CCS ) give you unparalleled information on how speech
technologies are really being applied. Presenters share how they
successfully procure, implement, and deploy existing speech
applications, and how they avoid common pitfalls. Customer case
studies will be presented on automatic speech recognition
solutions, analytics, and speaker authentication across a wide
variety of industries. Listen to presentations from companies in the
following industries:
w Financial Services
w CPG/Retail
w Healthcare
w Government/Utilities
w Telecommunications
w Insurance
w Automotive
w Order Entry
In addition to formal conference sessions, there are many networking opportunities to meet other customers, including breakfasts,
session breaks, lunches, receptions, and informal gatherings of customers with similar interests.
14
able to perform speech-to-speech translation in near real time. This session
explores key research in this area and provides cogent examples of real
successes in machine translation.
People are interested in easily searching and monitoring a wide range of foreign media in real time without language barriers. IBM made a big step
toward this goal with the development of the Trans-lingual Automatic Language Exploration System, codenamed TALES. TALES performs video capture, automatic speech-to-text conversion, machine translation of foreign text
to English, and information extraction. This presentation shows some of the
technical challenges in building the TALES platform with an emphasis on
cross-lingual information propagation and name spelling normalization to
improve machine translation and information extraction components.
Advanced Dialogue’s Growing Sophistication
C104
2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Bill Scholz, President, NewSpeech LLC
Speech applications continue to grow in complexity and sophistication,
requiring both the deepening and broadening of context to meet the requirements for troubleshooting, call routing, and detailed information retrieval.
To meet these needs, the dialogue design process has grown significantly
in sophistication, requiring the integration of powerful data, grammar, and
code infrastructures that support robust and flexible interaction—even utilizing inference and reasoning capability borrowed from the AI community.
This session explores instances of this growing sophistication in dialogue
design and looks at the evolution toward an integrated model for advanced
dialogue services supported by a major standards organization.
More Than Call Steering:
Managing Dynamic Contextual Complexity
Phillip Hunter, Vice President, Interaction Design, SpeechCycle
The last few years have seen growth in the need for highly complex speech
applications characterized by either very deep (insurance or troubleshooting) or very broad (call routing and stocks) contexts. But when customer
and caller demands mean enabling broadly more complexity with increased
simplicity of access, interface and application design and construction must
adapt accordingly. Highlighted in a customer deployment involving call steering and multiple other applications, SpeechCycle discusses advances in
powerful data, grammar, and code infrastructures that support robust and
flexible interactions allowing callers to request hundreds of unique tasks,
some of which involve dozens of turns and variously arranged contexts.
Architectures for Advanced Dialogues
David Thomson, CTO, SpeechPhone
The VoiceXML Forum Tools Committee is exploring ways to introduce standards to development of advanced speech services. (We define “advanced”
as a system endowed with a higher level of reasoning than typically exists
in menu-based or finite state machines.) This has been an area of active
research and new methods have been deployed in impressive trials and
services. Through a series of conference calls and workshops, we have been
reviewing architecture options and are exploring what new or existing standards can be used. By standardizing system components, we hope to help
reduce the development cost for building advanced speech services. The
presentation will review methods for supporting advanced dialogues and
will outline proposed architectures and standards under consideration.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
Natural Language Processing Techniques
C105
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, ATX
5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. in the Exhibit Hall
TRACK D
w Shubert Complex (6th Floor)
DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT
Design Methodologies and Tools
D101
10:15 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Improved Customer Experience
with a Natural Language Solution
MODERATOR: Ingmar Kliche, Project Manager, T-Systems Enterprise
Services GmbH
Peter Trompetter, VP Global Development, GyrusLogic, Inc.
The presentation will emphasize the benefits of ASR/VoiceXML application developments with the use of robust artificial intelligence (AI) tools for
easy and cost-effective implementation of answering a caller’s questions,
executing transactions in a conversational dialogue and/or natural language
fashion. The solution presented is a linguistic AI conversational dialogue
product suite to complement the ASR and/or VoiceXML application developments achieving the caller’s first contact resolution.
Adaptive Audio IVR Software for IT Efficiency
Daniel O’Sullivan, President/CEO, Interactive Digital
Adaptive audio IVR software can dynamically adjust the speaking rate (in
words per minute) and audio message content of voice applications on
individual caller skills. This personalizes the call experience as it happens,
creating more responsive and more productive customer experiences. The
process emulates what humans do naturally to communicate more effectively with each other during normal conversation. The benefits of adaptive
audio include decreased average handle times and increased average handle rates, ultimately resulting in increased customer satisfaction.
Virtualization and Intelligent Integration
WELCOME RECEPTION w Sponsored by Angel.com
C106
4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, ATX
The first presentation identifies how virtual IVR technology can enable
each deployed speech application to operate in an independent space
with its own speech resources, configuration, and reporting. Virtualization
is ideal for large companies, carriers, hosting, and any environment with
many applications. This solution simplifies the deployment of multiple
speech recognizers, development tools, applications, and teams of developers. The second presentation describes how speech technology
increases safety and improves communication for police officers who must
interact with a license plate database while driving or interviewing suspects outside of the patrol car.
IVR Virtualization: Platforms for Parallel
Speech Development and Deployment
Rob Kassel, Vice President, Marketing & Product, Holly Connects
Virtual IVR technology enables each speech application deployed to a platform to operate in an independent space with its own speech resources,
configuration, and reporting. Virtualization is ideal for large companies, carriers and hosting, and any environment in which there are many applications because it provides a natural efficiency for developers, user interface
designers, and operational staff. Virtualization simplifies the deployment of
multiple speech recognizers, multiple development tools, multiple applications, and teams of developers.
The Challenges of Mixing Speech Technologies in the
Development and Deployment of Speech Applications
Nava Shaked, CRM and CC Leader, IBM
We are often asked by our customers both to enhance system efficiency and
to maximize results. These goals can be reached by combining two or more
speech technologies such as speech recognition and speech biometrics.
Successful cross-technology integration requires not only the core technology interface but also development of the appropriate VUI. These will be dis-
How can systematic design methodologies and usable tools decrease the
time and effort to create useful user interfaces? The first presentation
describes developer experiences designing a multimodal user interface
using a standard product development methodology, modified to include
special steps for designing voice and graphical components. A formal procedure for evaluating and selecting voice-enable features to include with
the GUI will be detailed. The second presentation overviews speech application development tools, identifies gaps created by using disjointed technologies, and describes the need for a new generation of tools to reduce
the overall complexity of delivering speech applications and to strike the
right balance between customer controls over an application while maintaining integrity.
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
This session will examine robust linguistic dialogue tools applicable to voice
application development. Proper use of these newly developed tools makes
it easy to realize a cost-effective implementation of caller query handling
and executing transactions in a natural language fashion. Additionally, this
session will discuss adaptive techniques designed to dynamically adjust
prompting in terms, speaking rate, and content. Ultimately, applying the
methodology and products discussed in this session results in an improved
user experience, better automation rates, and increased IT efficiency.
cussed in the presentation by illustrating real customer problems and issues
with some solutions suggested. In addition, the presentation will address regulation and business considerations that result from this approach.
A Multimodal Interface for Call Center Agents
Matthew Yuschik, Human Factors Specialist, Multichannel Self Care,
Convergys
How can systematic design methodologies decrease the time and effort to
create useful multimodal user interfaces? This presentation describes developer experiences designing a multimodal user interface using a standard
design methodology, modified to include special steps for designing the
voice and graphical components. This presentation describes a formal procedure for evaluating and selecting voice-enable features to include with
the GUI and discusses product development stages and test results.
It’s All Connected: The Dysfunctional Relationship Between
the Toolbox and Successful Speech Applications
Leah Eyler, Product Manager, SpeechCycle
Today speech application developers have a mixed bag of tools targeted
at a range of skills, resulting in a range of solutions but very few in support
of a comprehensive approach to development. This presentation will discuss the evolution of speech application development tools and the gaps
created by using disjointed technologies. Because of the connections
between VUI, development, QA, and analysis, there is a need for a new
generation of tools to reduce the overall complexity of delivering speech
applications and to strike the right balance between customer controls over
an application while maintaining its integrity. Learn what to consider when
selecting development tools.
Speaking and Listening to Mobile Devices
D102
11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
MODERATOR: Ahmed Bouzid, Senior Product Manager, Angel.com
Speech technologies will be an integral part of the user interface on
cell phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices. This session discusses the
problems of designing and implementing user interfaces for mobile devices
which are expected to soon be widely used.
Steps to Determine Multimodal Mobile Interactions
Matthew Yuschik, Human Factors Specialist, Convergys
By observing call center agents using a multimodal tool that overlays
speech onto an existing GUI, multimodal procedures are identified that
reduce the complexity and increase the efficiency of the transaction.
This process becomes an early step in migrating an agent-enabled
transaction in the call center to a self-service transaction performed
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
15
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
by the caller on their mobile hand-held device. Yuschki describes the steps
in the design procedure that highlight how call center agents become a
testbed for end-user multimodal UIs.
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH w Sponsored by
Phone 2.0: The Mobile Generation at Work
12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. w Broadway Ballroom, 6th floor
Beatriz V. Infante, President and CEO, VoiceObjects, Inc.
New Standard Languages for
Developing Speech Applications
Modular Data Components in SCXML
James Barnett, Senior Technical Director, Aspect Software
The State Chart XML (SCXML) describes XML syntax for representing dialogue flow control using state chart notation (an extension of state transition diagrams). SCXML will be an important component of the forthcoming VoiceXML 3.0 as well as be used for a variety of nonspeech applications.
The latest W3C working draft of the SCXML specification provides a modularization of the language. This talk will provide an overview of this modularization with particular emphasis on its pluggable data model. Specifically, platforms can plug in different data languages, such as XML and
ECMAScript, to suit different applications.
D103
D104
1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Advanced Techniques for Using Grammars
MODERATOR: Yves Normandin, President, NuEcho
2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published a working draft for
two new standard XML languages for developing speech applications. The
Pronunciation Lexicon Specification is a standard XML interface for speech
recognition engines and speech synthesis engines to access lexicons of
words and their pronunciations. The State Chart XML (SCXML) describes an
XML syntax for representing dialogue flow control using the popular state
chart notation. SCXML will be an important component of the forthcoming
VoiceXML 3.0 as well as in a variety of nonspeech applications.
MODERATOR: Rob Kassel, Vice President Marketing & Product,
Holly Connects
How to Improve TTS and ASR Performance
This session discusses two advanced grammar techniques. First, the W3C
standard ABNF grammar format is extended for the design and implementation of dynamic grammars that can be edited, tested, and debugged using
the same set of tools that help a speech scientist build effective static grammars. Second, when standard transcribed data is not available, algorithms
generate grammar weights based on data available from the application.
These presentations will cover how to use both innovative techniques that
promise to improve speech recognition accuracy.
Paolo Baggia, Director of International Standards, Loquendo
The accurate specification of the correct pronunciation is critical to the success of many speech applications, especially when targeting multilingual
applications. For example, the incorrect pronunciation of proper names and
place names can confuse and mislead users. The Pronunciation Lexicon
Specification (PLS) is a new W3C voice browser standard designed to enable
interoperable specification of pronunciation information for both ASR and
TTS engines. The presentation will demonstrate how PLS enables the efficient development and deployment of speech applications that share pronunciation lexicons. Extensive examples and case studies will be presented.
Developing Robust and Efficient
Dynamic Speech Recognition Grammars
Dominique Boucher, Lead Software Developer, NuEcho
The W3C standard ABNF grammar format is extended for the design and
implementation of dynamic grammars. Using this approach, dynamic grammars can be viewed as a seamless evolution of existing static grammars
instead of a separate set of resources in a project. These dynamic grammars can be edited, tested, and debugged using the same set of tools that
helps a speech scientist build effective static grammars, including a
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AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
MONDAY, AUGUST 20
feature-rich grammar editor, coverage tools, phrase interpretation, semantics stepping, intelligent sentence generation, and so on.
how-to’s and real-world examples drawn from the experiences of two large
financial services companies.
Leveraging Existing Reporting to
Rapidly Tune Speech Applications
The Impact of W3C Standard Languages
A common misconception in speech is that one can only tune an application with thousands of transcriptions. When standard transcribed data is
not available, algorithms generate grammar weights based on standard
reporting data. This presentation will cover techniques for using nontraditional data to deliver a rapid round of tuning.
D105
MODERATOR: James Barnett, Senior Technical Director, Aspect Software
The publication of W3C standard languages, such as VoiceXML and
CCXML, has dramatically changed the speech application design process.
This session discusses some of the efforts to extend and validate the use
of standard languages. First, learn how the call control language can work
with SIP and VoIP to implement an extensible SIP softswitch. Then discover
how the VoiceXML Forum’s certification program has impacted the crossvendor interoperability of VoiceXML by VoiceXML platform vendors.
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
SIP Applications Using CCXML
MODERATOR: Rob Kassel, Vice President Marketing & Product,
Holly Connects
R.J. Auburn, Chief Technical Officer, Voxeo
Services-oriented architecture (SOA) will be a significant area of technology investment for enterprises. New technologies make it possible for contact centers to tap into the SOA to drive more advanced speech applications with shorter development times and less risk. This session will focus
on the technical standards and practices that allow speech-enabled IVRs
to benefit from existing and upcoming SOA investments. The session will
also emphasize practical tips and real-world examples.
Developers are increasingly using the W3C Call Control language, CCXML,
to add call control features to their telephony applications. At the same time,
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Voice over IP (VoIP) have found widespread acceptance and deployment in everything from long-distance networks to enterprise call centers and in consumer telephony. Learn how SIP,
VOIP, and CCXML can work together in next-generation telephony deployments, plus the advantages and disadvantages of a combination of both.
Learn how CCXML can be used to implement an extensible SIP softswitch.
Integrating Speech Applications With
Enterprise IT Assets Using Web Services
VoiceXML Platform Certification:
What Every Customer Should Know
Michael Codini, Chief Technical Officer & Co-Founder, VoiceObjects
Ken Rehor, Founder, VoiceXML Forum
One shortcoming of many speech applications deployed today is the lack
of integration between these applications and the rest of an enterprise’s IT
infrastructures. As a result, valuable opportunities to enhance speech applications using intelligence contained in an organization’s web, CRM, and
other IT assets are lost, and IT efficiency suffers. web services integration
between speech applications and other enterprise IT assets can remedy
this situation. Learn how web services can be applied to call center and
other speech-enabled environments and how to fully leverage CRM, BI,
and other IT assets via web services.
VoiceXML platform certification has helped to stabilize and mature the
speech and contact center industry by encouraging the cross-vendor interoperability of platforms, tools, and applications. Along the way, certification
has become a key speech system RFP criterion for savvy companies adopting speech. This presentation will discuss why VoiceXML platform certification is an indispensable requirement of a complete speech system specification. This presentation will also detail the pitfalls that customers may
encounter in choosing self- or vendor-certified platforms. A summary of
what is covered and what is not covered by the VoiceXML platform certification will be presented.
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
David Claiborn, Senior Designer, United Healthcare
Integrating Speech Technologies
With Enterprise Applications
D106
How Speech Recognition Works
in the Service-Oriented Architecture
John Oh, Technical Lead, Customer Contact Business Unit, Cisco
According to Gartner, spending on service-oriented architecture is expected
to grow from $14 billion in 2005 to $189 billion in 2009, making it the
single-most significant area of technology investment for the enterprise.
New technologies make it possible for contact centers to tap into the SOA
to drive more advanced speech applications with shorter development
times and less risk. This session will focus on the technical standards and
practices that allow a speech-enabled IVR to tap into the benefits of an existing or upcoming SOA investment. The presentation will include practical
Welcome Reception
Sponsored by
All SpeechTEK attendees are invited to a Grand Opening Reception
from 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. in the Exhibit Hall on Monday.
Network with exhibitors, speakers, and conference attendees
while enjoying a glass of wine and light hors d’oeuvres.
Monday Sunrise Semester Discussions w 8:00 a.m. – 8:50 a.m.
Royale Room (6th floor)
SUNRISE SEMESTER DISCUSSION 2
The Effectiveness of Marketing
Messages, Legal Verbiage, and
Website References in IVR Systems
SUNRISE SEMESTER DISCUSSION 1
Emotion in Speech Technology
DISCUSSION LEADER:
Renae Rogers, Dialogue Designer, West Corp.
DISCUSSION LEADER:
Paolo Baggia, Director of International Standards, Loquendo SpA
Join us for a short overview of how emotions impact on speech applications, including
speech synthesis, speech recognition and facial expressions. Possible discussion questions include the following:
• What are the types of emotion that would be useful to detect during speech recognition?
• How would an application respond when it detects various emotions?
• How would an application express emotions?
• How can existing applications be enhanced by emotions in speech technology?
• What new applications are enabled by emotions in speech technology?
Marketing messages, legal verbiage, and web references in speech applications all compete for the time
your customer has to listen and speak. Improper placement and verbiage can distract the caller and reduce
the effectiveness of even the best speech application.
Learn how customers feel about these messages and
some practical lessons to maximize their affect while
not hurting your prospects for voice self-help.
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
17
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH w Sponsored by
Remember Me: A Case Study on
Personalized Self-Service
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
Keynote
Preparing for the New Consumer
12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. w Broadway Ballroom, 6th floor
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Tracy Griffith, Sr. Manager Customer Technology Reservations
& Premium Services, American Airlines
w
Broadway Ballroom
Lior Arussy, author of several books, including his most recent,
Excellence Every Day: Make the Daily Choice—Inspire Your
Employees and Amaze Your Customers (Information Today, Inc.)
Despite technological innovations, companies are failing to meet
increasing customer expectations. To stay competitive, organizations
must meet customers’ growing demands by incorporating new ways
of thinking, connecting, and doing business that will create profitable
and delightful customer experiences. Lior Arussy is a renowned
author; business visionary; creative catalyst; and president of Strativity Group, a consultancy which advises Global 2000 companies
and emerging businesses around the world. Arussy will address the
biggest customer strategy issues facing organizations today, such
as the new rules of customer engagement, and offer suggestions
on how to better prepare for the new consumer.
TRACK A
w Soho Complex (7th Floor)
MEETING BUSINESS GOALS
WITH SPEECH TECHNOLOGY
Speech: Thinking Out of the Box
A203
1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: Eduardo Olvera, Senior User Interface Designer,
Nuance Communications
The days of having a speech strategy separate from an overall user-experience strategy are over. For a strategy to be meaningful, organizations must
consider speech technology as one element in a multichannel customer contact plan that encompasses all the ways in which the customer might interact with them. This session will provide valuable lessons in understanding
how speech fits with the web, printed material, live customer service, and
other channels through which organizations touch their customers.
Is Your Caller Experience Web-Aware?
MODERATOR: Judith Markowitz, President, J. Markowitz Consultants
PANELISTS:
Whitney Quesenberry, Consultant/Researcher, WQ Usability
Moshe Yudkowsky, President, Disaggregate
Steve Chirokas, Vice President of Marketing, SpeechCycle
What are the bleeding-edge possibilities for speech technology? In this
panel we take 3 steps back to reexamine speech from the outside to get a
new perspective on where we stand today and where we could be tomorrow. Join us for a forward-thinking conversation on how speech can be an
empowering technology for the automated, mobile interfaces of the future.
A202
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: Valentine Matula, Director, Multimedia Research, Avaya
Is there a place for video alongside your speech solution? Experts in this
session make the case for how video technology offers new opportunities
in the call center and next-generation networks. Learn how video will change
the ways we approach self-service and about the new business opportunities video will enable.
Video-Based Call Centers and Self Service Applications:
Is There an Untouched Need Out There?
Bob Cooper, Chief Architect, Voice Portal, Avaya
How will the customer experience change when video-based call centers
and self-service applications become available? What new services that we
are not considering today will become commonplace and what will they
mean to your call center? This session will look into a few scenarios and
discuss the technical hurdles that must be overcome. You will also learn
which international locales are best prepared to deploy these technologies.
Lizanne Kaiser, Customer Experience Designer, Genesys
Telecommunictions Laboratories
The rapid expansion and penetration of the web has dramatically changed
customer behavior not only online but also during phone calls. Despite this,
automated phone systems are often still designed as siloed channels.
Speech systems that lack web-awareness provide incoherent customer
experiences, damaging customer loyalty and business benefits. Drawing
from client case studies, this presentation will explore the impact of the web
on customer behavior and expectations, metrics for assessing the webawareness of your caller experience, design guidelines for creating webaware speech systems, and predictions about the evolving convergence
of the web and phone, along with the ramifications for speech technology.
Speech and the Cross-Channel Customer Experience:
Leveraging Speech to Improve Branding, Customer
Satisfaction, and Self-Service Rates
Elaine Cascio, Vice President, Vanguard Communications
Customers conduct business with companies through many different channels, but the experience is often disjointed and inconsistent. This creates
customer confusion and frustration or, even worse, abandonment for the
competition. They’ll also tell at least five others about their dissatisfaction.
In this session, you’ll learn how your speech application is a critical component to building a positive cross-channel customer experience. We will
examine how speech can contribute to the overall multimedia brand experience and build customer loyalty, plus we’ll look at real-life examples of
organizations that provide seamless cross-channel service (as well as some
that don’t). Finally, we will outline the critical steps you should take to ensure
your customer has an engaging, seamless, and positive experience.
Speech in CPG/Retail
Opportunities for Video in the Next-Generation Network
2:45 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Rob Marchand, Senior Director, Product Management, Genesys
Telecommunications Laboratories
MODERATOR: Sunil Issar, Director, Convergys
This session will discuss opportunities for the deployment of speechenabled video applications in the enhanced-services and managed-service environments. The discussion will include overviews of real-world
deployments, plus a review of the challenges that remain. Topics will cover
architecture, applications, and standards, including SIP and VoiceXML.
18
Cross-Channel User Experience
A201
10:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Video in the Network and Call Center
In 2007, American Airlines launched an industry-leading telephone service
for its frequent fliers to deliver proactive information based on the callers’
upcoming needs. A year later, find out how American Airlines did it and
whether the investment has paid off — both for travelers and for American
Airlines. AAdvantage members can enroll in “Remember Me” with the
instructions at www.aa.com/callaa.
A204
Consumer packaged goods companies and retailers rely on speech technology in a variety of ways. This session will focus on two of them: warehousing and customer self-service solutions. One presentation will feature
Coca-Cola’s warehouse voice picking system, based on inexpensive IPphones and network-based speech recognition, which yielded significant
cost reductions.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
VoIP Creates New Approach to Speech-Based Warehousing
CCS Michael Jacks, Senior Manager, Logistics & Transportation, Coca-Cola
Enterprises
leads to direct business benefits, including faster calls, happier customers,
productive agents, and lower phone bills. Yes, you can have your cake and
eat it, too.
ATTENDEE RECEPTION w On the 9th Floor
Guided Self-Service Solution for Call Centers
How Do You VUI?
CCS Tom Scott, CIO and SVP, Operations, Spiegel Brands
10:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
The Spiegel call center has replaced the traditional menu-driven touchtone
approach to receiving and routing calls with guided self-service. This session takes an up-close look at the new solution, which enables a behindthe-scenes human guide to monitor and assist four or more simultaneous
calls, resulting in a better caller experience with reduced ordering and customer service costs.
MODERATOR: Peter Krogh, Speech Mechanic, SpeechCycle
The VUI Backlash
A205
4:15 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.
MODERATOR: Lizanne Kaiser, Customer Experience Designer, Genesys
Telecommunications Laboratories
Touchtone IVRs was once the technology people loved to hate—an object
of ridicule in popular culture, one of the slings and arrows of modernity we
were forced to suffer. Speech recognition was billed as a solution to the ills
of touchtone, but there are rumblings that speech-enabled IVRs are rapidly
taking the place of touchtone in the cultural hall of shame. In this session,
we examine what the general public really thinks about speech and examine why speech hasn’t lived up to the initial hype. The speakers will explore
the reasons people are dissatisfied and ways to alleviate their distress.
Why People Really Hate IVRs and What to Do About It
Ahmed Bouzid, Senior Product Manager, Angel.com
IVR systems are generally perceived by users as obstacles installed by companies to keep callers from reaching expensive human agents, rather than
helpful tools that can effectively serve callers’ needs. IVRs are not only failing to do their jobs, but they are also pushing some of users’ most sensitive hot buttons. This session will identify these emotional triggers and offer
some clear guidelines on ensuring the deployment of highly usable IVR
solutions.
Get Human, Get Real
Simonie Wilson, Senior Speech Scientist, Intervoice
Some key issues have been missed in the ongoing discussion about GetHuman, a movement founded by Paul English and based on his belief that
a live agent is always better than an IVR of any kind. The truth is, it’s not
that simple. From a desire for privacy, to needing assistance in the middle
of the night, to a dislike for offshoring, callers have many reasons to prefer
automated systems instead of live agents. We’ll discuss how to improve the
automated part of a call, and maybe we can offer some suggestions for the
GetHuman initiative.
Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
Nick Ezzo, Director of Marketing, TuVox
Many people believe that providing an excellent caller experience is an
unnecessary expense—that “caller experience” and “business benefits” are
contradictory terms. Based on data from actual implementations, this session will methodically build a case that proves a great caller experience
Breakfast & Coffee Breaks
A continental breakfast will be provided for conference attendees
each morning from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. before the keynote session.
Additional coffee breaks will take place each morning and afternoon.
Please check the schedule for exact times and locations.
5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
TRACK B
w Empire Complex (7th Floor)
VUI DESIGN PRINCIPLES AND TECHNIQUES
B201
There’s more than one way to design a good voice user interface. Join
us for a session in which VUI experts give us new ways of thinking about
VUI issues. Learn how the precise wording of VUI prompts can vastly influence the way users respond and for a discussion on the impact new VUI
standards will have on our industry. Come and participate in what promises to be a spirited debate of some of the most important issues in VUI
design today.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
Coca-Cola Enterprises created the first-ever deployment of warehouse
voice-picking based on inexpensive IP phones and network-based speech
recognition. The results? Significant reductions in per-device costs and total
cost of ownership. This presentation will provide insights into what drove
this innovation, the results achieved, and future plans to leverage speech
capabilities on a services-oriented architecture (SOA) basis throughout the
company.
Coffee? Tea? Yes, Please
David Suendermann, Speech Science Engineer, SpeechCycle
Ethan Levine, Voice Interaction Designer, SpeechCycle
When designing a troubleshooting application, much effort is put into finding an optimal balance between eliciting in-grammar responses and brevity
of dialogue. This session will present data from calls to live systems that
used three styles for eliciting responses: giving the caller explicit instructions as to the set of valid responses; phrasing a question to include the
set of valid responses, though not explicitly stating how the caller should
respond; and phrasing a question without any guidance. Of note, certain
formulations encouraged ambiguous responses; we will discuss relevant
avoidance and recovery strategies for these.
Getting Serious About IVR Dialogue Standards:
A Framework for Action
Bruce Balentine, EVP and Chief Scientist, Enterprise Integration Group
Ken Rehor, Founder, VoiceXML Forum
User interface standards offer both utility and disruption to the many players involved in IVR, including end users, enterprise stakeholders, call center agents, technology vendors, and VUI designers. Conflicts of interest and
philosophy constitute a culture of resistance that has reduced IVR quality
and raised costs worldwide. The goal of this presentation is to propose a
framework for which an organized and representative community of stakeholders within the IVR industry can go about agreeing on a standardized
set of IVR behaviors for telephone-based dialogues.
Inaugural Meeting of the Association
for Voice Interaction Design
B202
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: Susan Hura, Principal, SpeechUsability
At SpeechTEK 2007, a group of user interface designers met and agreed
that our profession needs an organization to promote excellence in voice
interaction design, facilitate professional development, and provide an
opportunity to share experiences with other designers. The result of that
2007 meeting is the Association for Voice Interaction Design (AVID). Join
us for the inaugural meeting of AVID for the opportunity to vote on the proposed charter and elect officers. Read the charter online at www.avixd.org
before the meeting and come prepared with questions and suggestions.
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH w Sponsored by
Remember Me: A Case Study on
Personalized Self-Service
12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. w Broadway Ballroom, 6th floor
Tracy Griffith, Sr. Manager Customer Technology Reservations
& Premium Services, American Airlines
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
19
B203
Business Problems, VUI Answers
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: David Martin, Principal Consultant-Speech Engineering, Avaya
Mark Webb, Process Engineer-IVR, Humana
Daniel Padgett, Sr. VUI Consultant, VoicePartners
Come to this session to hear the inside story of the VUI process from two
perspectives. In the first presentation, the customer organization, Humana,
presents the business challenges that led the company to seek a speech
solution. Next, the solution provider, VoxGen, presents its view of the situation and discusses the methodology used to develop a highly effective
solution for its client. Join us for this unique opportunity to talk with both
the customer and the vendor together to understand how to work as a team
to solve business problems with speech.
VUI Design for Multimodal Applications
B204
lobbyists, etc. This session features a demonstration of Prime III, as well as
a discussion about how speech was incorporated into this award-winning
application, which could change the way we vote.
Talking Games: Toward Speech as a Mainstream Modality
David Thornton, Instructor, Auburn University
This session will describe the results of an ongoing study of speech-based
cursor control mechanisms—research that is intended to provide user data
to influence the design of future systems involving real-time demands, very
small targets, and moving targets. One such application of this research is
in the area of video games. These findings also have implications for physically impaired users whose primary or only control modality is speech.
Driving the Conversation
Forward in the Face of Errors
B205
4:15 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.
2:45 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: Jim Milroy, Director, Creative Services, West Interactive
MODERATOR: Jonathan Bloom, Senior Interaction Designer, SpeechCycle
Users encounter error conditions in every voice user interface, and VUI
designers must plan for how they will deal with inevitable errors. Conversational errors occur regularly in human-to-human communication as well, but
we deal with them so seamlessly that the positive flow of conversation is
rarely interrupted. The way we deal with conversational errors in VUIs is rarely
this smooth and often begins a needless progression toward the failure of
the interaction. The experts in this session explore new ways to look at error
conditions and methods for dealing with errors, with the goal of building
VUIs that de-emphasize errors and move conversation forward.
Here you’ll see multimodal user interface design in action. These presentations will give real-life examples of multimodal user interfaces incorporating speech technologies. Presenters will highlight the challenges of integrating speech with a visual interface and describe the techniques they
used to design effective, pleasing user interfaces. Come to see demonstrations of both a multimodal voting system and multimodal games with
speech controls and decide if multimodal is ready for prime time.
Prime III: A Multimodal Approach to Electronic Voting
Juan Gilbert, T-SYS Distinguished Associate Professor, Auburn University
A New Perspective on Speech Recognition Errors
Prime III is a multimodal electronic voting system designed, implemented,
and tested by the Human Centered Computing Lab at Auburn University.
The system has caught the attention of Congress, local and national media,
Gregory Simsar, Vice President Speech Services, Syntellect
Many types of speech communication behaviors that humans handle effortlessly are not even detected by today’s speech recognition systems, let
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Stand 306
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20
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
ity checked by human interaction or runs unattended. Key ideas include
the automatic adaptation of the language model to the interests of the user
which allows deployed systems to adapt to dynamically and quickly changing environments without interaction by the vendor of the system, as well
as identification of the ideal point in time to rebuild a language model.
Advancing Toward Intelligent Agents
Emmett Coin, Speech Scientist, ejTalk
The Subtle Science of Failing: How to Retry
Jonathan Bloom, Senior Interaction Designer, SpeechCycle
Jackson Liscombe, Speech Engineer, SpeechCycle
Just like humans, speech recognition systems do not always understand
their conversational partners. How should these systems recover when
recognition confidence is low? Up until now, designers have based their
retry strategy mostly on tradition, bombastic opinion, anecdotal evidence,
or, at best, one-off opinions from usability test participants. In this presentation, we will discuss research based on tens of thousands of calls, each
hitting one of four different retry styles: an apologetic preamble, a preamble without an apology, an abbreviated retry, or a retry avoiding explicit references to self. We will base the relative success of each strategy on turn
success rate, average number of retries required per turn, percentage of
out-of-grammar utterances, automation rates, and caller satisfaction.
Voice applications began as almost pure speech recognition systems:
speaking choices, numbers, etc. Primitive directed dialogues followed. Now
many applications support some sort of mixed initiative as they progress
toward less-rigid behaviors. Sadly, these methods are already failing to meet
the expectations of users, not to mention leading to paralyzing complexity
for developers. Going forward, voice systems will incorporate other existing and proven technologies to make applications smarter. These technologies have the potential to dramatically reduce the complexity of development for today’s sophisticated voice applications. This session will compare
and contrast the benefits and limitations of these technologies ranging
across natural language processing, rule-based and case-based reasoning, and statistical and connectionist (neural net) approaches.
Enhanced VUI: Context-Sensitive Dialogue
C202
Refocusing Caller Intent: Approaches for Building
Fault-Tolerant Voice User Interfaces
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Jessica Peterson, Speech Technology Consultant, and
Based on real-world deployments, this session will present detailed
aspects of a framework for natural language routing applications. You
will learn how to adapt confirmation states to specific types of initial
caller requests to elicit usable input that leads to successful call routing,
as well as strategies for handling callers who provide input to a natural
language main menu that cannot be successfully mapped to a business
category. You’ll gain a new approach that creates a second chance to
harness the benefit of natural language recognition when warranted,
with the goal of creating a smarter speech application and improving the
overall user experience.
Natural language understanding (NLU) technologies can significantly
improve caller experience and improve business metrics such as routing
accuracy and call completion rates. The ultimate goal is to deliver intelligent responses to natural speech input. Based on the current state of
speech recognition technologies, NLU technologies need to be used selectively to achieve the best performance. For example, it may be better to use
a menu followed by an open-ended prompt instead of the reverse. This session dives deep into NLU technologies and how to build robust statistical
models for optimal performance. Interesting application performance
results are discussed, including effective handling of spontaneous speech.
ATTENDEE RECEPTION w On the 9th Floor
Building Robust NLU Applications
MODERATOR: Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, ATX
Sunil Issar, Director, Convergys
5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
TRACK C
w Majestic Complex (6th Floor)
ADVANCED SPEECH
TECHNOLOGIES SYMPOSIUM
Natural Language Processing: Automaticity
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
alone handled gracefully. Only by taking a new perspective on the types of
errors that are encountered by speech recognition systems—and by mapping them to the types of errors that occur in human-to-human interaction—
can we start to make significant improvements in how errors are handled.
This presentation builds on a SpeechTEK VUI workshop and subsequent
article in Speech Technology magazine about a new taxonomy for speech
recognition errors.
C201
10:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
MODERATOR: Bill Scholz, President, NewSpeech LLC
The use of statistical natural language processing continues to expand, but
its growth pace is inhibited by the cost of language model development
and maintenance. This session describes a framework that automatically
adapts and changes automatic speech recognition language models over
time and considers the evolution of applications from pure speech recognitions systems, to mixed-initiative systems with less rigid behavior, and to
voice systems that incorporate proven technologies to become not only
smarter but less complex to maintain.
CAVA: Continuous Automatic Vocabulary Adaptation
Mark Pfeiffer, VP Business Development & Communications, SAIL LABS
Technology AG
CAVA from SAIL LABS is a framework that automatically adapts and
changes automatic speech recognition language models over time to current affairs. The user determines areas of interest that are to be harvested
for domain- or topic-specific data, which subsequently form the basis of
automatic language model creation. Data sources are combined according to their relevance to yield a series of domain-, time-. and topic-specific
language models. This mix of language model data and sources then adds
and subtracts words and terms depending on their relevance in the current deployment environment. This processed data is then optionally qual-
Natural language understanding (NLU) technologies can significantly
improve caller experience and improve business metrics such as routing
accuracy and call completion rates. These technologies allow the caller to
speak naturally. In general, based on the current state of speech recognition technologies, NLU technologies need to be used selectively to achieve
the best performance. For example, it may be better to use a menu followed
by an open-ended prompt. We will describe when it is appropriate to use
NLU technologies and how to build robust statistical models for optimal
performance. We will also describe results comparing performance of
directed dialogue and statistical grammars. Key Ideas: NLU can improve
business metrics; NLU technologies need to be used selectively for optimal performance; VUI design and statistical models need to handle spontaneous speech, which introduces additional complexities.
Intelligent Responses to User Input
Susan Boyce, Principal Designer, Tellme (a subsidiary of Microsoft)
Customizing voice applications for individual users can have several beneficial effects. Accurately anticipating the reason for a call can streamline
the interaction. Other characteristics of the caller, such as location or previous calling history, can be used to enhance recognition performance.
This presentation will review examples of effective use of personalization
in voice applications and set forth some guidelines.
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH w Sponsored by
Remember Me: A Case Study on
Personalized Self-Service
12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. w Broadway Ballroom, 6th floor
Tracy Griffith, Sr. Manager Customer Technology Reservations
& Premium Services, American Airlines
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
21
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
Enhanced VUI: Dynamic Response Generation
C203
Advances in Automotive Speech
1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
2:45 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: Bill Scholz, President, NewSpeech LLC
MODERATOR: Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, ATX
As speech applications grow in sophistication, they are moving beyond
rigid preconceived dialogue flow toward user interaction that responds
dynamically to the overall context of the conversation. Speakers in this session consider recent success in building applications with this evolving
behavior and will review experiments designed to evaluate the benefits of
this growing sophistication in user interaction using a large subject pool.
The human/machine interface in the vehicle is evolving quickly and now
allows drivers to use speech to control music, phones, navigation systems,
and other functionalities, making it possible to be more productive while
driving. This session will reveal the latest in embedded natural language
interaction and dialogue management technologies from a major research
center, and how it can be applied in the vehicle. Beyond the user interface
itself, also critical for speech enablement is proper microphone configuration and specialized acoustic models targeted at handling far-field speech
under noisy driving conditions. This session is a must for those interested
in what’s up and coming in automotive speech.
Shifting the Intelligence Burden:
The Limits and Possibilities of VUI Design
Ahmed Bouzid, Senior Product Manager, Angel.com
VUIs are restrictive in three crucial ways: They are time linear—you must
patiently listen to one word before you can hear the one that follows it; unidirectional—when you hear something you can’t easily go back and listen
to it again; and invisible—you can’t easily figure out where precisely you are
in the interaction and what exactly the system expects you to do next. This
session will cover several types of contexts that can intelligently inform management of an interaction, such as user profile, recent caller history, call initiation context, and call population distribution. Being aware of the context of the call can help facilitate numerous intelligent adaptations.
The Intelligent Customer Front Door (iCFD)
Phil Shinn, Principal Consultant, Voice Application Services,
Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories
The iCFD not only greets a caller, but also gathers their intent, adds contextual information from their profile and history, and then makes a decision based on business rules on how to route the caller to the most suitable resource (either automated or live agent) to most effectively resolve
the interaction. This dynamic approach is different from traditional static
IVR applications in that it utilizes a blended strategy that considers an individualNortel_HalfH_STEK08_FinalPrg
caller's value, the current state of call center
queues, information
7/15/08
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CRM databases to construct, on-the-fly, a unique and personalized caller
experience. This talk with focus on the methods and features used to build
a iCFD, and discuss some case studies.
Conversing With Your Car
Roberto Sicconi, Program Director, T.J. Watson Research, IBM
This presentation will focus on automotive interfaces that illustrate the latest in embedded natural language interaction and dialogue management
technologies. Examples of this are systems that will enable users to converse naturally with devices such as music players and GPS navigation systems to accomplish their objectives easily and efficiently. Key natural language understanding and dialogue management features include
state-of-the-art statistical language modeling, natural language understanding technology, and free-form recognition of multiple items in a single
request. Excruciating menus are avoided by direct access to most functions and without having to remember specific commands that need to be
used at specific places in a dialogue.
Voice Automation in the Vehicle: Deployments and Trends
Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, ATX
The automobile is designed to be safe to drive, and speech interfaces fit
1nicely into the driving experience. Today, speech interfaces allow drivers to
use speech to control music, phones, navigation systems, and other functionality, making it possible to be more productive while driving. This presentation will analyze significant automotive speech deployments and
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22
C204
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
include topics such as microphone configuration, acoustic models, language models, and multimodal interface requirements.
Ancillary Transcription Techniques
C205
Recognition technology has matured to the point that recorded telephonequality audio from unknown speakers can be transcribed with sufficient
accuracy to support commercial applications such as medical data transcription, broadcast news captioning, and near-real-time conversion of
voicemail to text. Recent improvements in transcription quality are achieved
through the use of ancillary information such as caller-specific data serving to narrow that speaker’s domain, speaker-dependent acoustic models
from frequent callers, and the use of CFGs to identify words and phrases
that occur with high frequency in the target domain. This session will review
the most beneficial ancillary factors contributing to transcription accuracy
and illustrate the effects of their incorporation.
Ancillary Transcription Techniques
Michael Picheny, Manager, IBM Research
As applications of large vocabulary speech recognition proliferate, there
are increasing opportunities to use various types of side information to
enhance recognition accuracy. This presentation will explore a range of
side information, ranging from the talker’s identity to more subtle information from extrinsic sources, such as questionnaire responses and crosslanguage constraints. The talk will also address the issues in incorporating
various additional information sources in practical deployable systems.
“Welcome Back, Steve,” Said the Friendly ... Computer?
Steve Pollock, EVP and Co-Founder, TuVox
It’s amazing how quickly you get used to personalized customer service.
Most consumer websites offer a personalized experience that is highly tailored with readily accessible account information. Can this happen over the
phone? This session will describe a recent application at a major American airline with advanced personalization features, including ANI authentication, greet-by-name, and context-specific menus so that callers are
offered appropriate choices at any point.
SPONSORED KEYNOTE LUNCH w Sponsored by
Remember Me: A Case Study on
Personalized Self-Service
12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. w Broadway Ballroom, 6th floor
Speech and Speaker Recognition
Systems Can Make Use of More Information
Tracy Griffith, Sr. Manager Customer Technology Reservations
& Premium Services, American Airlines
Jordan Cohen, Senior Scientist, SRI
Speech and speaker recognition systems can make use of more information than is normally included in an acoustic model. We have been experimenting with the use of back-channel information, word choice, channel
modeling, and other measures to assist in performing better speech recognition. In addition, we have started a project to collect data in which speaker
style is explicitly controlled. Appropriately modeling the aspects of style is
expected to enhance our recognition performance substantially.
ATTENDEE RECEPTION w On the 9th Floor
5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
w Shubert Complex (6th Floor)
DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT
D201
10:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Speech in Healthcare
D203
1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: Raj Tumuluri, Principal, Openstream
With an ever-increasing focus on accuracy and privacy in the healthcare
industry, speech technology is playing a bigger role. The first case study
in this session shows how a natural language VUI enables bidirectional
access to the entire text-based component of electronic medical records.
Learn how this application was designed, implemented, and deployed and
how it impacts medical center operations. The other presentation highlights
how healthcare companies can use speech technology for outbound calls.
Current healthcare protocols often require regular patient follow-up after a
hospital discharge or as part of a clinical study. ATS found an IVR application that is just as effective as live nurse calls, more cost effective, and more
beneficial—providing more consistent, reliable calls.
ICIPS: Integrated Clinical Information Phone Service
CCS Val Nenov, Adjunct Professor, Division of Neurosurgery,
UCLA Medical Center
MODERATOR: Jim Larson, VP, Larson Technical Services
Dan York, Director of Emerging Communication Technology, Voxeo
How secure are your speech applications? As the usage of both VoiceXML
and CCXML continues to explode, and VoIP usage continues to grow dramatically, especially within enterprise environments, it is increasingly important that you ensure that applications and services are not open to attack.
Learn about the potential vulnerabilities in a system using VoiceXML or
CCXML, what you can do to secure these systems, and how you can
develop a strong architecture.
Personalization and Context
How your self-service application handles that desperate cry for an agent
is a careful balancing act. The difficulty lies in conflicting objectives—contact centers want to help callers facing problems but avoid unnecessary
transfers. If the application transfers without analyzing the situation, the
caller might face long hold times and more frustration. New research on
the contextual handling of transfer requests have resulted in a flexible
approach for dialogue design where the speech application facilitates rather
than impedes the completion of callers’ goals.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
MODERATOR: Bill Scholz, President, NewSpeech LLC
Securing CCXML and VoiceXML Applications
Optimizing a Caller’s Request for a Live Agent
Patrick Nguyen, Chief Technology Officer, Voxify
4:15 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.
TRACK D
showing advanced personalization features, ANI authentication, and contextspecific menus so callers are offered appropriate choices at any point.
D202
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: R.J. Auburn, Chief Technical Officer, Voxeo
Many consumer websites offer a personalized experience that is highly tailored
with readily accessible account information. But what about over the phone?
This session will review approaches to using context to improve the user interface dialogue. The first presentation describes recent research on the contextual handling of transfer requests. The second presentation describes recent
applications for the airline, entertainment, and financial services industries,
ICIPS is an ongoing R&D project at the UCLA Medical Center. Its main objective is to provide bidirectional access to the entire text-based component of
the electronic medical records using a natural language VUI. Learn how this
application was designed, implemented, and deployed and how it impacts
the operation of a medical center. This presentation will summarize the
strengths and weaknesses of the VUI as compared to an existing GUI.
When Is a Virtual Nurse Call Better Than a Live One?
CCS David G. Engelhardt, President, Advanced Technical Support, Inc.
Current healthcare protocols often require regular patient follow-up after a
hospital discharge or as part of a clinical study. Typically, doctors rely on
nurses to call patients to monitor recovery or to gather data for statistical
analysis. These calls are expensive and time consuming compared to an
IVR application that can replace nurse calls. Automated calls were found
to be just as effective as live nurse calls and had additional benefits—more
consistent, reliable calls were possible. This presentation will discuss the
study protocol and the results of the trial. Virtual nurse calls now are a
proven, winning strategy for clinical studies and patient care.
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
23
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
D204
Speech in Government/Utilities
2:45 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
MODERATOR: David Thomson, CTO, SpeechPhone
A clear sign that speech has hit the mainstream is when late technology
adopters, such as governments and utility companies, are implementing
speech solutions. The first case study in this session will describe the development and deployment of a new speech application to provide customer
self-service to its San Francisco residents. The second case study discusses why NSTAR chose speech to replace the previous menu structure,
integrating with other call center technologies, the importance of load and
performance testing and customer reaction.
Developing Call Center Applications
CCS Marge Vizcarra, CSM, City and County of San Francisco
James Whitten, Assistant Manager, Contact Center, San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission will describe the development and deployment of the new speech application to provide customer
self-service to its San Francisco customers. The goals of the new system
are to increase use of automated offerings, free up agents to assist callers
that can only be assisted by a live agent, save agent transfer calls for customers really needing assistance with an easy tool for self-service, and to
ensure that a live person is always reachable.
Improving Customer Experience Implementing
a Speech-Enabled IVR at NSTAR
CCS Michael Roberts, Business Integration Manager, Customer Interaction
Center, NSTAR Electric and Gas
In this presentation, attendees will learn why NSTAR chose speech technology to replace the existing menu structure, how the interoperability with
other call center technologies affected the implementation, how load and
performance testing ensured a successful implementation, and what reaction customers had to the new system. NSTAR’s telecommunications team
learned many lessons during the rollout of the project on both a business
and technology levels. Getting management’s commitment early in the
process and reviewing existing technology for any interoperability issues
are two of the lessons learned that will be shared during this presentation.
Speech in Telecommunications
D205
4:15 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.
MODERATOR: Judith Markowitz, President, J. Markowitz Consultants
The first case study, by Verizon FiOS TV, will reveal three different
approaches to challenge its existing design. All designs were evaluated
based on two metrics: number of callers successfully matching their need
to a technical support topic and automation rate. One of the designs was
a clear winner, improving both accuracy and automation by 10%. The second case study, by Leaco Rural Telephone Cooperative, will cover how to
improve the customer experience, brand differentiation, and identity fraud.
The third case study will provide an overview of a successful large-scale,
customer-facing deployment of voice biometrics technology.
A Champion-Challenger Experiment for Designing a Natural
Language Question
CCS Manohar Kesireddy, Business Solutions Architect,
Verizon Data Services
Verizon FiOS TV wanted to determine the best design for a natural language question and back-off menu for a technical support application. The
company created three different approaches to challenge the then-existing
design. All four were deployed in a limited production release and evaluated based on two metrics: number of callers successfully matching their
need to a technical support topic and automation rate. One of the designs
was a clear winner, improving both accuracy and automation by 10%. The
characteristics of the winning design will be presented.
Improve the Customer Experience With Voice Authentication
CCS Laura Phipps, General Manager and EVP, Leaco Rural Telephone
Cooperative
Leaco is a telecommunications services provider that supplies wireless,
wireline, and internet services to approximately 175,000 bilingual and monolingual customers in Southeastern New Mexico. In November 2007, Leaco
began rolling out customer-facing speaker-verification services to 12,000
of its customers. The system is designed to address the following issues:
improve the customer experience; regulatory compliance (with CPNI); Customer concerns about security; and brand differentiation.
At Bell, My Voice Is My Password
CCS Fred MacKenzie, Sr. Business Solutions Advisor, Bell Canada
Charles Giordano, Associate Director, Bell Canada
Bell Canada is the largest telecommunications services provider in Canada.
It has rolled out a nationwide, customer-facing system, starting with residential wireline and wireless customers. By the start of 2008, Bell Canada had
enrolled 500,000 customers. The company chose speaker verification for the
following reasons: to secure the privacy of customer data; to make privacy
more convenient; and to reduce the average length of call-center calls.
ATTENDEE RECEPTION w On the 9th Floor
5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday Sunrise Semester Discussions w 8:00 a.m. – 8:50 a.m.
W3C Multimodal Working Group
Royale Room (6th floor)
SUNRISE SEMESTER DISCUSSION 3
Speaker Identification
and Verification
DISCUSSION LEADER:
Judith Markowitz, President,
J. Markowitz, Consultants
An open meeting of the VoiceXML Forum’s
Speaker Biometrics Committee, which is
working on extending VoiceXML to include
Speaker Identification and Verification (SIV).
Anyone interested in SIV is welcome to
attend. Discussion topics will include an
update from the VoiceXML Forum’s Biometric committee followed by a Q&A.
24
SUNRISE SEMESTER DISCUSSION 5
SUNRISE SEMESTER DISCUSSION 4
It Ain’t Shakespeare ... Or Is It?
DISCUSSION LEADERS:
Alexandra Auckland, Senior VUI Designer, Nuance
Communications
Melanie Polkosky, Human Factors Psychologist and
Consultant, IBM
Like playwrights, VUI designers write dialogue that
is meant to be spoken out loud. Yet, recent research
reveals that less than 10% of designers in the field
have an educational background in voice performance, acting, coaching, voice pathology, or pedagogy. In this lively session, we will share techniques
about what to look for in auditioning talent, how to
write dialogue that translates well to the spoken language, and how to effectively coach a voice actor so
the resulting application becomes more effective,
natural, and usable.
DISCUSSION LEADER:
Deborah Dahl, Principal,
Conversational Technologies
Increasingly powerful mobile devices, along
with improvements in displays and speech
technologies, are making possible innovative, compelling, and robust applications that
allow users to combine speech, graphics,
ink, and motion. Emerging standards for
multimodal interaction support and simplify
the development and deployment of these
applications. Please join us for a discussion
of current and planned work in the World
Wide Web Consortium’s Multimodal Interaction Working Group and learn how to get
involved in the W3C standards process.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
AD
enue. The session will identify caller experience information that organizations must take into account.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
Keynote
DTMF Versus Speech
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
The Art of Deception: Are You
in Danger of Being ‘Conned’?
w
8:45 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
MODERATOR: Phil Shinn, Principal Consultant, Voice Application Services,
Genesys Telecommunication Laboratories
Broadway Ballroom
Kevin Mitnick, author, world-famous (former) hacker, &
security consultant
As more businesses and consumers depend on speech technology,
it’s becoming increasingly important to protect your investments. With
more than 15 years of experience in exploring computer security,
Kevin Mitnick is a largely self-taught expert in exposing the vulnerabilities of complex operating systems and telecommunications
devices. As the world’s most famous (former) hacker, Mitnick has
been the subject of countless news and magazine articles published
throughout the world. Mitnick will share how hackers compromise
your security and what you can do about it.
TRACK A
A302
w Soho Complex (7th Floor)
MEETING BUSINESS GOALS
WITH SPEECH TECHNOLOGY
How should an organization decide between speech and touchtone IVR solutions? The thinking used to be that speech was an all-or-nothing decision,
but increasingly, organizations are discovering that a speech-plus-touchtone
solution may be the best fit for their IVR. Learn how to decide which features
require speech, which may be well-served by touchtone, and how to create
a smooth, cohesive user interface that includes both modalities.
Does Your Application Require Speech, Touchtone, or Both?
Darla Tucker, Principal, Global Consulting Services, Intervoice
Buyers, beware: You might not need a big, expensive speech application
when a simple touch-tone application could be the perfect fit. Or perhaps
you do need the new speech application, but with a twist. No matter, the
perfect always requires a solid case and strategy for what’s purchased and
deployed. We’ll explore what you must consider and how to determine what
best suits the needs of your business and your callers.
Balancing Business Needs Versus Caller
Needs When Migrating DTMF Applications
Matt Whipple, Principle Consultant, Self-Service Solutions, Avaya
Customer Satisfaction 2008
A301
10:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
MODERATOR: Tim Moynihan, Vice President, Global Marketing & Sales
Support, Envox
Today’s consumers are increasingly sophisticated in their expectations for
customer service from the organizations with which they do business and
are increasingly willing to publicize negative experiences. This combination leads to a volatile marketplace in which organizations must protect
their customers against poor user experiences to establish and maintain
their competitive advantage. Experts in this session discuss how to realistically assess customer satisfaction and deliver a positive experience to
every customer every time.
You Can’t Hide From a Bad Experience
Lynda Kate Smith, VP, General Manager, Core Business Unit,
Nuance Communications
Organizations can no longer hide from their customers’ bad experiences.
Expectations are higher than ever before, and with today’s social media,
the consumer’s voice is louder and travels further. That’s why you must
ensure customers are satisfied with their increasingly automated and mobile
interactions with your company. This presentation will talk about the shift
of power from company to consumer. It’s also designed to show the impact
social media is having on customer care and the opportunity businesses
have to make favorable impressions by leveraging the power of speech.
DTMF applications are usually easier, faster, and cheaper to develop than
speech applications. As waves of proprietary IVR systems and hardware
platforms reach their end of life, they will need to be replaced. As a result,
many businesses turn to vendors to replace those systems in a like-for-like
fashion—an approach that might saves time and money, but does it enhance
customer loyalty and represent a service that meets caller needs? This presentation will explore a few DTMF-to-DTMF application rewrites and how the
same business needs could have been better addressed with speech.
LUNCH BREAK
12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.
Security for Speech
A303
1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: Dan York, Director of Emerging Communication Technology,
Voxeo
How secure is your speech application? Organizations are now accustomed
to dealing with security threats that arrive via email and web channels but
are sometimes less familiar with the threats presented by the use of speech
technologies. In this session you will learn how to identify emerging threats
to the speech channel and develop strategies to effectively protect your
data, customers, and organization.
The Critical Importance of Caller Experience Analysis
Improving Security for Telephone-Based
Self-Service Interactions
Michael Codini, Chief Technical Officer and Co-Founder, VoiceObjects
Steven Cawn, Sales Leader, IBM
The business success of automated voice services depends significantly
on a well-founded understanding of how these services are used by customers. Modern tools for dialogue analysis allow business units to produce
meaningful reports that provide a 360-degree view of customer interactions. These reports help call centers control and optimize applications and
systems and are an essential part of achieving broad corporate objectives,
including greater customer satisfaction, cost reductions, and increased rev-
This session will cover current capabilities and market trends related to
improving security for self-service environments. We will discuss such topics as federal regulations that are driving deployments (such as multifactor
authentication), current technology capabilities, and industry trends. Case
studies will highlight uses of security technologies and considerations for
production deployments.
VoIP Phishing: The Next Threat to IVRs
Kris Herrin, Chief Security Officer, Heartland Payment Services
Passport for Prizes
Don’t forget to have your “passport” stamped at participating
exhibitors for a chance to win prizes!
Questions? See any SpeechTEK representative at the Registration Desk, 4th Floor.
26
Identity theft costs us an estimate $53 billion annually, and VoIP phishing
is simply the latest assault by hackers to steal personal information. It
exploits the trust people have in IVRs, toll-free numbers, and strong brands.
In this presentation, we will witness a live demonstration of VoIP phishing,
get under the hood to see exactly how hackers accomplish it, and explain
what companies should do to reduce the risk to their customers and, ultimately, their bottom lines.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
A304
The Crystal Ball
2:45 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Experts in this panel will gaze into the crystal ball and give us their predictions for new developments in speech technologies. Join us for a spirited
discussion of upcoming trends in speech recognition, speaker biometrics,
and speech analytics. This session will prepare you for what’s next in the
world of speech and give you hints on how to be one step ahead of the
curve in making the most of speech technologies.
TRACK B
w Empire Complex (7th Floor)
VUI DESIGN PRINCIPLES & TECHNIQUES
Beyond Spanish in the U.S.: Acculturated Hispanics and the
Use of Spanglish
Jose Elizondo, Professional Services Manager, Multilingual VUI Design,
Nuance Communications
Many companies offer customers the choice of using Spanish but do not
understand the issue of “Spanglish.” Spanish speakers in the U.S. often
mix English and Spanish words in the same sentence, or mix languages to
create new words. This has deep implications for the design of grammars
and user dictionaries, as well as the use of parallel grammars. This session
will propose methods for understanding and addressing these issues to
create a successful Spanish system.
LUNCH BREAK
12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.
Making VUIs Even Better
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
MODERATOR: Ron Owens, Director, Multimedia Applications PSO, Nortel
PANELISTS:
Daniel Hong, Lead Analyst, Datamonitor
Judith Markowitz, President, J. Markowitz, Consultants
Bill Meisel, President, TMA Associates
ical climate, immigration controversies, and the quality of Spanish applications, affect companies’ willingness to offer Spanish, as well as callers’ willingness to use it. This session presents data from existing applications that
illustrate the need for improvement.
B301
B303
10:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Happy Together? Speech and Touchtone
MODERATOR: Fran McTernan, Speech Operations Lead, Nortel
1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
This session brings together two different but very valuable topics in VUI
design. In the first presentation, we explore yes/no questions—an extremely
common but troublesome element in VUI design. The second presentation
changes gears to discuss the ways in which VUI design must change to meet
the needs of internal-facing VUIs, meant for users within an organization, versus more common, external-facing, public VUIs. These presentations ask specific questions and give targeted answers that you can apply in your VUI.
MODERATOR: Matt Whipple, Principal Consultant, Self-Service Solutions,
Avaya
A Thousand Ways to Yes: Robust Dialogue Design
to Recognize Responses to Yes/No Questions
Can one user interface encompass both speech and touchtone input in an
efficient, effective, and satisfying interaction? This session explores this
question and offers insight into the ways speech and touchtone can work
in concert. Learn techniques for writing prompts and call flows that make
sense across modalities, and understand that data supports these techniques. This session will teach you how to use both speech and touchtone
to their best advantage, allowing your organization to meet its business
objectives.
Patrick Nguyen, Chief Technology Officer, Voxify
A large variety of yes/no questions are fundamental in today’s speech applications. Callers offer widely differing responses, which can be a challenge
to commonly used, generic yes/no grammars. In this session you will learn
about research into the types of caller responses, implications for dialogue
design, and how to build robust templates that can handle the variation.
Does One Size Fit All?
Bob Cooper, Chief Architect, Voice Portal, Avaya
Are there a different set of rules that should be followed for a private-facing
application versus a public-facing one? This discussion will focus on lessons learned in designing a personalized, private-facing application, detailing where its design overlaps with a public-facing app and where the needs
of private users are clearly different. You will also hear how presence and
multimodality may affect where private-facing applications could be headed.
The Best of Both Worlds: Speech and Touchtone in Harmony
David Attwater, Senior Scientist, Enterprise Integration Group
This session presents research on user interfaces that combine the stability of touchtone with the elegance of speech recognition. With results from
real-world testing, you’ll learn how modality preference varies among callers,
by context for an individual caller, and even on a turn-by-turn basis in the
dialogue. We present a behaviorist approach to show how interfaces can
rapidly adapt and with no overhead in terms of task completion time.
What’s Up With “Press or Say”?
Phil Shinn, Principal Consultant, Voice Application Services, Genesys
Telecommunication Laboratories
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
This presentation reviews the pros and cons of designing and deploying a
“press or say” speech application. While some believe this is an easy way
to transition from DTMF to speech applications in the enterprise, others
consider it a bad idea for a variety of reasons. This session will detail recent
findings to help you make the best choice.
MODERATOR: Melanie Polkosky, Human Factors Psychologist and
Consultant, IBM
The Ultimate VUI Showdown
Designing for Spanish
B302
In too many U.S.-based speech projects, the Spanish-language portion of
the project is an afterthought. Organizations recognize the need to offer
telephony services in Spanish for their growing Hispanic customer base,
but do not always devote the resources and attention necessary to ensure
a positive and productive experience for these customers. The experts in
this session will present proactive strategies that ensure your Spanish voice
interaction meets the unique needs of Hispanic customers, offering them
a compelling reason to use automation.
B304
2:45 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Sondra Ahlen, Principal VUI Consultant/Owner, SAVIC
MODERATOR: Gregory Simsar, Vice President, Speech Services,
Syntellect
PANELISTS:
Bruce Balentine, EVP and Chief Scientist, Enterprise Integration Group
Ahmed Bouzid, Senior Product Manager, Angel.com
Wally Brill, SVP of Creative Services, VoxGen Group
Lizanne Kaiser, Customer Experience Designer, Genesys
Telecommunication Laboratories
Peter Krogh, Speech Mechanic, SpeechCycle
Elizabeth Strand, Director of User Experience Design, Tellme, a subsidiary
of Microsoft
A caller’s initial interaction with a multilingual application is in choosing the
language for communicating with the system, typically English or Spanish.
The presentation of language choice can affect system performance, customer satisfaction, and company image. Diverse issues, such as the polit-
What are the hot topics in VUI today? Where do we agree and where are
there still controversies? Join us for the third annual panel debate on the
state of the art in VUI design, refereed again this year by Greg Simsar. Come
with questions for this year’s panel of VUI practitioners and be ready to
Para Continuar en Espanol: Best Practices for Offering Spanish
in U.S. Telephony Applications
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
27
10:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
on their personal computers. This talk will show how speech-enabled selfservice applications can become even more effective by displaying to a
caller a visual display or video at the same time that they use the speech
application menus, pictures of products, live video clips, and video commercials. Specific application development techniques that leverage speech
and visuals together will be presented, along with sample speech-enabled
voice-plus-video applications for universities, travel, retail, and home healthcare. The process of application authoring will be part of the talk.
MODERATOR: Matthew Yuschik, Human Factors Specialist, Multichannel
Self Care, Convergys
Speech in Automotive
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
share your 2 cents in spirited discussions of where VUI stands as a profession and discipline.
TRACK C
w Majestic Complex (6th Floor)
TODAY’S SPEECH TECHNOLOGIES
Video and Speech
C301
Around the world, consumers have access to live, two-way video using 3G cell
phones, broadband/DSL videophones, and video telephone software on their
computers. Speech-enabled self-service applications can become even more
effective by displaying a visual display or video at the same time they use the
speech application. The phone display may present menus, pictures of products, live video clips, and video commercials. This session discusses how to
harness video in VXML to quickly create rich voice and video applications, as
well as how to author multimodal applications for these devices.
Voice, Video and VXML: Add Visual Va-Va-Voom to Your VUI!
Andrew Fuller, CTO, Voxpilot
With the increasing proliferation of fixed and mobile videophones and
media-friendly next-generation networks such as IMS coming closer to a
reality, the market waits for 1-D audio services to blossom into interactive,
personable, engaging multimedia interfaces. In this presentation we show
how to effectively harness video-in-VXML to quickly create rich voice and
video applications and discuss some considerations when implementing
a wide range of new services such as video mail, adult services, video dating, TV-on-mobile, video contact centers, etc.
Techniques for Developing Speech
Plus Video Self-Service Applications
Valentine
Matula, Director Multimedia
Research,
Labs 1
00_iFLYTEK_HalfH
7/15/08
3:04 Avaya
PM Page
Around the world consumers have access to live two-way video using 3G
cell phones, broadband/DSL videophones, and video telephone software
28
C302
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: Paolo Baggia, Director of International Standards,
Loquendo
Speech technology is increasingly being used in the automobile. The first
case study in this session will show how a speech-enabled, in-vehicle device
can read email and text messages aloud and enable users to instantly
respond by voice. This session’s second case study will reveal how customers can use their mobile phones to retrieve location and current realtime parking availability at parking facilities; make parking reservations at
a facility; pay for parking; and provision a new user account and provide
outbound informational alerts.
Success Story: iLANE, the Voice-Enabled Travel Companion
CCS Ben Miners, Product Manager, Intelligent Mechatronic Systems
A new, state-of-the-art, speech-enabled in-vehicle device exists that not
only reads email and text messages aloud, but enables you to instantly
respond to them by voice. Generated speech notifies drivers with timely
information about phone calls, calendar appointments, and other potentially distracting mobile phone events. The following challenges will be
covered: In-vehicle voice interfaces require extremely careful design and
focus around the user’s primary task—driving; and flexibility, personalization, and appropriateness of dialogue content are important in a VUI used
on a daily basis.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
Multimodal Dialogue Strategies
CCS Christian McCarrick, CTO, ParkingCarma, Inc.
Dave Pelland, Director, Design Collaborative, Intervoice
ParkingCarma needed a scalable and safe way to enable its customers to
access its services while driving. Companies should be able to perform the
following functions in as cost-effective and convenient manner possible
through a speech enabled application over a mobile phone: search for and
get the location and current real-time parking availability at parking facilities, make a reservation for parking at a facility, pay for parking at a facility,
and provision a new user account and provide outbound informational
alerts. The system also had to be designed to take into account the harsh
noise environment inside of cars and parking facilities.
There are several different strategies for designing multimodal dialogues
for use on the handset. Some appear to be less multimodal and more multimedia while others achieve true multimodal interaction. This talk will present different strategies along with the pros and cons for each and how to
determine which strategy might be the right one for your application.
LUNCH BREAK
12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.
Multimodal Standards and Applications
C303
1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Conducting and Evaluating a Multimodal Usability Test
Cliff McEnery, UI Designer, Nuance Communications
As multimodal applications become more widely available, planning for and
conducting usability studies are critical steps for improving the ease-of-use
of these applications. This presentation will discuss strategies for testing
the usability of multimodal applications, including how to set up the test
environment and some of the special usability concerns a multimodal application presents. Lessons learned from an on-site multimodal usability study
will be included as well.
MODERATOR: Andrew Fuller, CTO, Voxpilot
This presentation will showcase standards-based multimodal applications
developed by member companies of the W3C Multimodal Interaction Working Group. It will also demonstrate some laboratory applications that illustrate the principles of the W3C Multimodal Architecture and a deployed
healthcare application that enables users to type, speak, and scribble on
their mobile devices to record vital readings, highlight regions of interest on
images, and submit them wirelessly.
Multimodal Applications Using W3C Standards
Deborah Dahl, Principal, Conversational Technologies
Ingmar Kliche, Project Manager, T-Systems Enterprise Services GmbH
This presentation will showcase standards-based multimodal applications
that illustrate the principles of the W3C Multimodal Architecture and how
the emerging multimodal standards being developed by the group can be
applied to integrate speech and GUI technologies and simplify the creation
of interoperable multimodal applications.
Mobile Multimodal Patient Monitoring
w Shubert Complex (6th Floor)
DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT
Speech in Financial Services/Insurance
D301
10:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
MODERATOR: Rob Marchand, Senior Director, Product Management,
Genesys Telecommunication Laboratories
Financial services and insurance companies are turning to speech technology for help in meeting stringent security, privacy, and compliance
demands. The first case study will show how a financial services company
uses a real-time speech solution that recognizes callers who typically call
for specific reasons and proactively engages in data-driven dialogues to
offer information they usually request. The second case study will highlight
how an insurance company provides members with prompt access to information using speech technology, which helped to cut costs, reduce call volumes, and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction.
State-of-the Art Call Center
Raj Tumuluri, President, Openstream
Openstream has built a suite of healthcare applications incorporating its
multimodal SmartCare technology for the use of care-givers, physicians,
and patients who are self-monitoring. This healthcare application combines
speech and visual images, allowing users to type, speak, and scribble on
their mobile devices to record vital readings, highlight regions of interest on
images, and submit them wirelessly. The system stores the images, overlay —gestures, and spoken comments — and plays them upon retrieval,
allowing other experts to review/add their comments and recommendations in a similar way.
Developing and Testing Multimodal Applications
TRACK D
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
Where Does Speech Fit Into Location-Based Services?
CCS Brent Sparks, Vice President, Self-Service Channels, Wachovia Bank
Wachovia uses a real-time, rules-based, customer-segment-driven decisioning solution that recognizes callers who typically call for specific reasons
and proactively engages in data-driven dialogues to offer information they
usually request. This approach gives the customer information faster and
bolsters IVR containment while simultaneously improving the customer
experience. This session will recap the approach, solution, and current
results, allowing attendees to learn more about this data-driven decisioning
technology and how the IVR can come full circle in providing personal treatment.
C304
2:45 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
MODERATOR: Hamilton Yu, Manager of Client and Product Delivery,
Tellme, a division of Microsoft
There are several different strategies for designing multimodal dialogues for
use on handsets. This session will discuss the pros and cons for each strategy and how to determine the best strategy for your application. Other topics
of discussion include how to conduct usability studies, a critical step in improving an application’s ease of use, how to set up a test environment, and some
of the special usability concerns a multimodal application presents.
Leveraging Speech Technology in Healthcare
CCS Remus Siclovan, Senior Systems Analyst, Health Net
Health Net realized cost savings between $2.3 million and $4.4 million annually using speech technology to automate processes, reduce call volumes,
and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction. This session will discuss
how speech technology can help healthcare providers balance cost effectiveness and service goals while providing members with prompt access
to information and how to enhance security, privacy, and HIPAA compliance using voiceprint identification.
Testing
Presentation Links
D302
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: Emmett Coin, Speech Scientist, ejTalk
Get access to many PowerPoint presentations and
websites used in conjunction with the SpeechTEK
2008 sessions! Links will be posted on the
SpeechTEK.com website soon after the conference.
This session addresses two important testing problems. The first is capacity testing. Most businesses have peak periods of high activity throughout
the year. Learn how to define and implement testing that will help mitigate
the risk of implementing a system that is not ready for peak-period deployment. The second is using open source software for testing. This session
will review an integrated, open standards application tuning-based approach
based on Eclipse. Application reporting, performance application logs, tun-
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
29
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
ing components, as well as how the latest approaches to integrated tuning
tools complement the application tuning process will also be covered.
Performance Testing for Peak Periods
that indentify call types, patterns, and repeat customers drives customer
calls to quick resolutions. This session will explore using speech application, customer surveys, and caller analysis to understand the voice of the
customer and meeting customer needs in a high-speed environment.
Jim Jenkins, CEO, IQ Services
Most businesses have peak periods of high activity throughout the year.
Making sure that your contact center solution infrastructure and related
technologies will work as required under these peak periods is a challenge.
In this session the attendees will learn how to define and implement testing that will help mitigate the risk of implementing a system that is not ready
for peak period deployment.
Consolidate and Correlate:
Integrated Application Design and Tuning
Self-Service Using Telephony-Based Order Taking
CCS Richard Grant, CTO, OrderCatcher LLC
OrderCatcher is a cost-effective self-service speech application for Chinese
and Pizza take-out. Learn why customers chose speech self-service, the
business problem they wanted speech self-service to solve, how they developed their requirements for the speech self-service application, and what
advice they would give to a company considering speech self-service to
take their fast-food orders over the phone.
Judi Halperin, Speech Engineer, Contact Center Practice, Self Service
Solutions, Avaya
Dennis Jakobsen, MTS, Avaya
Tuning Tips
Tuning is an absolutely critical step in the success of any speech implementation. Today speech application developers use various application
development packages but often rely on separate and costly commercial
tools or tool scripts for application tuning. This session will review an integrated open standards-based approach based on Eclipse, which simplifies direct correlation between the design of the application and its realworld performance. Application reporting, performance application logs,
tuning components, as well as how the latest approaches to integrated tuning tools complement the application tuning process will be covered.
MODERATOR: Emmett Coin, Speech Scientist, ejTalk
LUNCH BREAK
Tuning Speech Applications
D304
2:45 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Tuning a speech recognition application results in a more accurate solution that can improve the caller experience. The process involves using
prompt, grammar, call flow, and caller data to help developers make the
needed changes. While nearly 40%–50% of total development and deployment time is often spent on application tuning, there are techniques to create a repeatable process that reduces time and gives the desired results.
Two experts will present their favorite tips and techniques for effectively tuning speech applications.
Yves Normandin, President, Nü Echo
12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.
D303
Speech in Customer Service
1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
MODERATOR: Paolo Baggia, Director of International Standards,
Loquendo
Speech applications are a driving force in defining the customer care experience. Designing and deploying automated speech solutions from the customer’s point of view is a critical factor for competitive advantage. Learn
the value from using speech to optimize your customer interactions to drive
higher business performance, increase automation rates, and improve your
customer satisfaction. This session will show the value of understanding
your speech applications and delivering a rewarding customer experience.
Delivering High-Speed Customer Service
With the help of numerous real-world examples, this session will present a
systematic approach to the task of tuning speech applications using fieldcollected utterances. Areas covered by the tutorial include effective grammar development and maintenance, the process of tuning grammars using
field utterances, key metrics to measure grammar performance, techniques
to efficiently manage out-of-grammar utterances, and tuning confidence
scores and setting confidence thresholds.
Speech Tuning, Practical Tips to Improve Performance
Stephen Keller, Project Manager, LumenVox
While nearly 40%–50% of total development and deployment time is often
spent on application tuning, there are techniques to create a repeatable
process that reduces time and gives the desired results. This presentation
will address how to effectively tune speech applications by presenting practical tips and proven techniques.
Chris Weeks, Division Vice President, Customer Care, Comcast
Delivering customer service in the most effective and efficient way is necessary for a successful customer service platform. Developing applications
Wednesday Sunrise Semester Discussions w 8:00 a.m. – 8:40 a.m.
Royale Room (6th floor)
SUNRISE SEMESTER DISCUSSION 6
Speech Development Teams
DISCUSSION LEADER:
Nava Shaked, CRM and CC Leader, IBM
Join us for an overview of the differences between
a traditional software development team and a
speech application development team. Possible
discussion topics will include the following:
• How to staff a speech application development
team (e.g., hire consultants temporarily, hire new
employees, or retrain existing employees)
• How to improve communication among team
members
• What to do when projects are behind schedule
30
SUNRISE SEMESTER DISCUSSION 8
Analytics
SUNRISE SEMESTER DISCUSSION 7
Project & Perfect: Using Success
Rate Projection Techniques to Make
Better Tuning Decisions
DISCUSSION LEADERS:
Louise Tranter, Lead Speech Applications &
Sarah Turney, Senior Speech Applications
Specialist, Fluency Voice Technology
A customer concerned that their application was
not performing drove us to explore new ways of
analyzing system performance and conveying the
results to our customers.
DISCUSSION LEADER:
Aphrodite Brinsmead, Associate Analyst,
Datamonitor
Datamonitor developed a method to help
determine where to focus further work by
projecting the likely impact of changes on
success rates in a format that is clear to
understand for our customers. The method
also allows us to highlight issues with the different aspects of the application in its live
environment, including recognition rates,
data quality and access and customer
behavior. We have been able to use this with
the customer to ensure that the focus of
efforts on both sides is targeted at where it
can be most productive.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
AD
SPEECHTEK LABS
This year marks our first SpeechTEK Labs, in which attendees can sample the latest speech technology products, talk to developers, and
speak openly to our expert panel of judges about the technology. These sessions, which take place in the Exhibit Hall on Tuesday and
Wednesday, will provide objective evaluations of new speech technology and show how speech is breaking new ground in various industries. Attendees will have the opportunity to evaluate speech products in three categories: multimodal applications, speech tools, and voiceactivated games. As an added benefit, after the lab, the judges will issue ratings of the tools to provide further guidance.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
10:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
TOOLS FOR SPEECH APPLICATIONS
MODERATOR: Moshe Yudkowsky, President, Disaggregate Consulting
What tools are available for speech technology application developers?
Developers at all skill levels can now select from a variety of competing and
complementary tools for the entire development process, from initial testing through coding through final testing. Visit this lab session to see what’s
available and to speak one-on-one with the tool developers.
Ajax Weaver
VoiceXML Orchestrator is the very first web-based drag-and-drop environment that allows end users to build self-service IVR applications inside Firefox and IE. It offers a sleek Ajax Weaver interface and WYSIWYG capabilities to visually layout call flows in a manner similar to creating Visio diagrams.
No software install, no downloads, no plugins.
Avaya Dialog Designer
The Avaya Dialog Designer is an open standards-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Avaya Voice Portal and Avaya Interactive
Response. Dialog Designer accelerates time to market for businesses seeking higher automation and closure rates, turns a faster return on investment
for Avaya Self Services solutions, and delivers superior customer satisfaction at a lower investment level. Based on the widely accepted Eclipse.org
development framework for fit in information technology (IT) departments,
Dialog Designer offers web application developers a reusable drag-anddrop environment for development and maintenance of speech and touchtone IVR applications.
Cisco Unified Call Studio 7.0
Cisco Unified Call Studio 7.0 is an integrated development environment
(IDE) for voice self-service applications that allows you to build, debug, manage, and document sophisticated speech-enabled telephone self-service
applications for Cisco and non-Cisco VoiceXML platforms.
munications solutions featuring voice, video, web, fax and email that easily
integrate with a wide range of databases, legacy, and back-office systems.
Loquendo TTS Director: The Next Generation Suite of
Authoring Tools for Speech Synthesis
It is a complete authoring tool for creating, testing and refining voice
prompts. It will simplify the creation of effective prompts for any of your applications in a few simple steps, but it also facilitates the use of our innovative
features, such as emotional TTS, the reading style definition, as well as the
new voices creation and the user-driven unit selection tools.
LumenVox Speech Tuner
The LumenVox Speech Tuner is designed to performs tuning and transcription, as well as instant parameter, grammar, and version upgrade testing of any speech recognition application. It reduces the work of your postdeployment application revisions and allows you to bring tuning in-house,
avoiding costly professional service fees.
VocaLabs
VocaLabs will be demonstrating its intuitive real-time usability survey reports,
which allow VUI designers and clients to quickly discover ways to improve
application designs and increase user acceptance.
Voiyager
Come and see firsthand how Voiyager is revolutionizing the VoiceXML development lifecycle. Learn how Voiyager can automatically explore, test, and
validate your service applications in a more efficient and time-saving manner. No other testing methodologies or products provide enterprises with
the validation that deployed applications are error-free.
Voxeo
West Interactive
1:45 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
VOICE-ACTIVATED GAMES
Envox Communications Development Platform
MODERATOR: David Thomson, CTO, SpeechPhone
This is an advanced graphical development environment that reduces IVR
development and deployment time by 50% or more compared to traditional
graphical development environments. Standardize on the Envox Communications Development Platform to quickly create multichannel IVR and com-
See some of the newest titles in voice-activated video games, such as Tom
Clancy’s End War. Visitors will get a chance to try the games and get a firsthand look at how speech technology lets players give verbal commands to
virtual teammates that go beyond the limitations of the game controller.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
10:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
MULTIMODAL APPLICATION LAB
MODERATOR: Deborah Dahl, Principal, Conversational Technologies
See how voice can be combined with other input modalities to dramatically
enhance the capabilities and usability of applications. This is your chance
to see the future of speech applications and learn about the effectiveness
of real multimodal applications.
Avaya
IQ Services Integrated Multichannel Testing
Contact center and unified communications solutions allow customers to
make contact via different devices. Is your contact center infrastructure ready
to support these diverse communications? Integrated Multichannel Testing
from IQ Services gives you confidence the critical elements of your solution
work separately and together to deliver a better customer experience.
32
Intervoice Voice Portal and Wireless Carriers’ 3G Networks
After receiving a flight cancellation SMS or email alert, an airline passenger may use his/her voice and touch screen interchangeably to reserve a
flight, including pricing options and seat selection. If the passenger requires
more information, he/she can touch a button or say “Agent” to transfer to
a Contact Center Agent.
Loquendo: Voice Multimodal Application Framework—
The Next Generation for Multimodal Voice Interaction
VoiceVerified
Our demo center is a CTI integrated experience so participants are on the
internet and the phone at the same time and can see the screen change
when they are authenticated. The IVR stand-alone demo is a very “hands
on” demo that is sure to get a “wow” from the participants.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
AD
SPEAKER DIRECTORY
Sondra Ahlen
Principal VUI Consultant/Owner
SAVIC
209-962-6444
sondra@savicvoice.com
Mike Bergelson
Director, Product Management
Cisco
646-674-7450
mbergels@cisco.com
Joe Alwan
Vice President & General Manager
BBN Technologies
617-873-7634
jalwan@bbn.com
Jonathan Bloom
Senior Interaction Designer
SpeechCycle
646-792-2213
jonathanb@speechcycle.com
Jenny Burr
Manager, Speech Technology,
Global Consulting Services
Intervoice
972-454-8794
jenny.burr@intervoice.com
Lior Arussy
President
Strativity Group
973-796-5310
info@strativitygroup.com
Ingo Bors
Industry Consultant
Ibolstar Consulting Services
650-288-0299
ingo.bors@ibostar.net
Elaine Cascio
Vice President
Vanguard Communications Corp.
401-849-9099
ecascio@vanguard.net
David Attwater
Senior Scientist
Enterprise Integration Group
+44 797 1244038
david@eiginc.com
Greg Borton
VP of Analytics
Nuance Communications
415-693-8646
Greg.Borton@nuance.com
Steven Cawn
Sales Leader
IBM
877-245-2127
scawn@us.ibm.com
Alexandra Auckland
Sr. VUI Designer
Nuance Communications
212-785-2272
alexandra.auckland@nuance.com
Dominique Boucher
Lead Software Developer
Nü Echo Inc.
514-861-3246
dominique.boucher@nuecho.com
Steve Chirokas
VP, Marketing
SpeechCycle
917-575-5371
steve@speechcycle.com
R.J. Auburn
Chief Technology Officer
Voxeo
407-418-1800
rj@voxeo.com
Ahmed Bouzid
Senior Product Manager
Angel.com
703-714-1078
bouzid@angel.com
David Claiborn
Senior Designer
United Healthcare
913-226-1788
daveclaiborn@hotmail.com
Paolo Baggia
Director of International Standards
Loquendo
+39 011 291 3425
paolo.baggia@loquendo.com
Susan Boyce
Principal Designer
Tellme Networks, Inc.
732-219-7646
susan.boyce@microsoft.com
Michael Codini
Chief Technical Officer & Co-Founder
VoiceObjects, Inc.
650-288-0299
mcodini@VoiceObjects.com
Bruce Balentine
EVP & Chief Scientist
Enterprise Integration Group
940-891-3414
bruce@eiglabs.com
Monique Bozeman
Marketing Consultant
Monique Bozeman Consulting
510-393-1932
moniquebozeman@comcast.net
Jordan Cohen
Senior Scientist
SRI
339-298-1008
Jordan.cohen@sri.com
James Barnett
Senior Technical Director
Aspect Software
978-250-7528
james.barnett@aspect.com
Wally Brill
SVP of Creative Services
VoxGen Group
wally@voicepartners.com
Emmett Coin
Speech Scientist
ejTalk
724-940-7000
emmett@ejtalk.com
Evening Receptions
SpeechTEK invites attendees with a Networking Pass or above to a Welcome
Reception held Monday evening in the Exhibit Hall from 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
sponsored by Angel.com as well as the Tuesday evening reception from
5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. on the 9th floor. Mingle with exhibitors, speakers, and
conference attendees while enjoying a glass of wine and light hors d'oeuvres.
34
AUGUST 18–20, 2008
Aphrodite Brinsmead
Associate Analyst
Datamonitor
abrinsmead@datamonitor.com
Bob Cooper
Chief Architect Voice Portal
Avaya
803-231-2714
bob@avaya.com
Bonnie Crater
SVP Marketing
VoiceObjects, Inc.
415-265-1804
bcrater@voiceobjects.com
NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
SPEAKER DIRECTORY
Leah Eyler
Product Manager
SpeechCycle
646-576-6691
leah.eyler@speechcycle.com
Charles Giordano
Associate Director
Bell Canada
905-282-3164
charles.giordano@bell.ca
Ricardo de Carvalho Destro
Technology Director
Volans Technology
PH: +55 11 92346650
ricardo.destro@volans.com.br
Nick Ezzo
Director of Marketing
TuVox
408-625-1617
nezzo@tuvox.com
Glen Graham
SVP Business Operations
Bank of America
704-683-2637
glen.r.graham@bankofamerica.com
Rita Dhruve
Speech Solutions Specialist
Nuance Communications
732-766-9385
ritadhruve@gmail.com
Andrew Fuller
Chief Technology Officer
Voxpilot
+353-1-209-1919
andrew.fuller@voxpilot.com
Richard Grant
Chief Technology Officer
OrderCatcher Inc.
305-444-8226
rgrant@allviewcorp.com
Jose Elizondo
Professional Services Manager,
Multilingual VUI Design
Nuance Communications
617-557-4401
Jose.Elizondo@nuance.com
Charles Galles
Multimedia Applications Speech Analyst
Nortel Networks
galles@nortel.com
Hannah Grap
Marketing Communications Manager
Language Weaver, Inc.
310-437-7300
hgrap@languageweaver.com
David Englehardt
President
Advanced Technical Support
dengelhardt@atsworldwide.com
00_Angelcom_HalfH_STEK_08
Marsal Gavalda
Director of Incubation
Nexidia
404-495-7220
jdavenport@nexidia.com
SPEAKER DIRECTORY
Deborah Dahl
Principal
Conversational Technologies
610-888-4532
dahl@conversational-technologies.com
Judi Halperin
Speech Engineer
Avaya
407-838-4181
jhalperin@avaya.com
Juan Gilbert
T-SYS Distinguished Associate Professor
Auburn University
7/16/08 11:46 AM Page 1
334-844-6316
juangilbert@computer.org
Angel.com powers smarter voice applications for
businesses large and small. Our powerful IVR and call
Smarter voice applications
Welcome back, Jane, would
you like to update your
customer support ticket?
center technologies help make businesses more efficient,
and your callers get the information they need faster.
Seamlessly integrate service and support lines with CRM
systems and other backend databases to better serve your
customers.
And, Angel.com solutions are built on a
web-based platform making it quick and easy to
implement a voice application that meets your unique
business needs, while at the same time reducing costs.
What’s smarter than that?
Want to find out how Angel.com can make
your business smarter?
Call us at 888-692-8165 or visit us online at
www.angel.com.
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
35
SPEAKER DIRECTORY
Kris Herrin
Chief Security Officer
Heartland Payment Systems, Inc.
972-454-8000
Kris.Herrin@e-hps.com
Manohar Kesireddy
Business Solutions Architect
Verizon
972-507-1657
manohar.r.kesireddy@verizon.com
Judith Markowitz
President
J. Markowitz, Consultants
773-769-9243
judith@jmarkowitz.com
Daniel Hong
Lead Analyst
Datamonitor
212-652-5375
dhong@datamonitor.com
Ingmar Kliche
Project Manager
T-Systems Enterprise Services GmbH
+49 30 3497 2348
ingmar.kliche@t-systems.com
David Martin
Principal Consultant-Speech Engineering
Avaya
321-663-1950
davidmartin@avaya.com
Phillip Hunter
Vice President, Interaction Design
SpeechCycle
469-853-9016
phillip@speechcycle.com
Peter Krogh
Speech Mechanic
SpeechCycle
530-265-2392
peter@speechcycle.com
Valentine Matula
Director, Multimedia Research
Avaya
614-825-6415
vmatula@avaya.com
Susan Hura
Principal
SpeechUsability
404-702-4723
susan.hura@speechusability.com
Ray Kurzweil
Author and Keynote presenter
Kurzweil Technologies Inc.
781-263-0000
ray@kurzweiltech.com
Christian McCarrick
CTO
ParkingCarma, Inc.
650-281-9864
cmccarrick@parkingcarma.com
Sunil Issar
Director
Convergys
703-885-5753
sunil.issar@convergys.com
Cliff LaCoursiere
SVP Business Development
CallMiner
617-899-1433
cliff@callminer.com
Cliff McEnery
UI Designer
Nuance Communications
415-371-8255 Ext 222
cliff.mcenery@nuance.com
Michael Jacks
Senior Manager, Logistics &
Transportation
Coca-Cola Enterprises
770-370-7368
mjacks@na.cokecce.com
James Larson
Vice President
Larson Technical Services
503-645-3598
jim@larson-tech.com
Jenni McKienzie
Senior Business Solutions Advisor
Travelocity
682-605-4069
jenni.mckienzie@travelocity.com
Ethan Levine
Voice Interaction Designer
SpeechCycle
407-574-7282
ethan@speechcycle.com
Fran McTernan
Speech Operations Lead
Nortel Networks
732-796-2025
mcternan@nortel.com
Charles Lewis
Senior Technical Trainer
Bloomberg LP
212-260-4084
charleslewis@acm.org
Bill Meisel
President
TMA Associates
818-708-0962
wmeisel@tmaa.com
Jackson Liscombe
Speech Engineer
SpeechCycle
jackson@speechcycle.com
James Mesbur
Voice Interaction Designer/
Speech Scientist Engineer
SpeechCycle
646-792-2183
james@speechcycle.com
Dennis Jakobsen
MTS
Avaya
408-577-7167
jakobsen@avaya.com
Jim Jenkins
CEO
IQ Services
612-243-5123
jjenkins@IQ-Services.com
Lizanne Kaiser
Customer Experience Designer
Genesys Telecommunications
Laboratories
510-965-0528
lkaiser@genesyslab.com
Rob Kassel
Vice President, Marketing & Product
Holly Connects
857-241-3717
rob.kassel@holly-connects.com
Stephen Keller
Project Manager
LumenVox
858-707-7700
stephen@lumenvox.com
36
AUGUST 18–20, 2008
Fred MacKenzie
Senior Business Solutions Advisor
Bell Canada
416-353-0826
fred.mackenzie@bell.ca
Rob Marchand
Senior Director, Product Management
Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories
905-968-3304
Robert.Marchand@genesyslab.com
Dan Miller
Senior Analyst
Opus Research, Inc.
415-904-7666
dmiller@opusresearch.net
Jim Milroy
Director, Creative Services
West Interactive
402-965-7422
jemilroy@west.com
NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
SPEAKER DIRECTORY
Karen Moylé
Voice Interaction Designer
SpeechCycle
646-826-2327
karen@speechcycle.com
Tim Moynihan
Vice President, Global Marketing &
Sales Support
Envox Worldwide
508-871-7656
tim.moynihan@envox.com
Carrie Nelson
Speech Solutions Team Technical Lead
Nortel Networks
631-285-2101
cnelso1@nortel.com
Val Nenov
Adjunct Professor
UCLA Medical Center
310-498-6197
vnenov@mednet.ucla.edu
Patrick Nguyen
Chief Technology Officer
Voxify
510-545-5000
hollis.chin@voxify.com
Yves Normandin
President
Nü Echo, Inc.
514-861-3246 Ext 225
yves.normandin@nuecho.com
John Oh
Technical Lead
Cisco
646-674-7421
johoh@cisco.com
Eduardo Olvera
Senior User Interface Designer
Nuance Communications
480-206-0966
eduardo.olvera@nuance.com
Daniel O’Sullivan
President/CEO
Interactive Digital
631-680-4307
dan@interactive-digital.com
Ron Owens
Director
Nortel Networks
402-222-7019
r.owens@nortel.com
Daniel Padgett
Senior VUI Consultant
VoicePartners
773-942-6946
Mary Constance Parks
Senior Voice User Interface Designer
Nuance Communications
415-260-1098
mary.parks@nuance.com
Tim Pearce
Global Solution Manager, Self Service
Dimension Data
+44 7909 976 030
tim.pearce@uk.didata.com
Dave Pelland
Director, Design Collaborative
Intervoice
972-454-8000
dave.pelland@intervoice.com
Jessica Peterson
Speech Technology Consultant
Versay Solutions
888-869-0121
jpeterson@versay.com
Whitney Quesenbery
Consultant/Researcher
WQ Usability
908-638-5467
whitneyq@wqusability.com
Ken Rehor
Founder
VoiceXML Forum
408-275-6488
christian@prequent.com
Michael Roberts
Business Integration Manager - Telecom
NSTAR
781-441-3377
Michael.Roberts@nstar.com
Renae Rogers
Dialogue Designer
West Corp.
800-542-1000
rmrogers@west.com
Thomas Schalk
Vice President, Voice Technology
ATX
972-753-6278
tschalk@atxg.com
Mark Pfeiffer
Vice President Business Development &
Communications
SAIL LABS Technology AG
+43 1 58095-580
mark.pfeiffer@sail-technology.com
Bill Scholz
President
NewSpeech LLC
610-212-8016
bill.scholz@newspeechsolutions.com
Michael Picheny
Manager
IBM
914-945-2527
picheny@us.ibm.com
Tom Scott
CIO & Sr. VP Operations
Spiegel Brands
757-825-4182
tscott@spiegelbrands.com
Roberto Pieraccini
Chief Technology Officer
SpeechCycle
646-792-2744
roberto@speechcycle.com
Vlad Sejnoha
Vice President, Chief Scientist
Nuance Communications
781-565-5164
Vlad.Sejnoha@nuance.com
Melanie Polkosky
Human Factors Psychologist & Consultant
IBM
901-861-9657
polkosky@us.ibm.com
Nava Shaked
CRM & CC Practice Leader
IBM
+972 (3) 916 5483
snava@il.ibm.com
Steven Pollock
Executive VP & Co-Founder
TuVox
408-625-1617
spollock@tuvox.com
Phil Shinn
Principal Consultant
Voice Application Services
Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories
310-488-9267
philshinn@yahoo.com
Matt Prather
Staff Engineer, VUI Design
Intervoice
415-317-4995
matthew.prather@intervoice.com
SPEAKER DIRECTORY
Ben Miners
Product Manager
Intelligent Mechatronic Systems
519-745-8887
bminers@intellimec.com
Roberto Sicconi
Program Director
IBM
914-945-3159
rsicconi@us.ibm.com
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
37
SPEAKER DIRECTORY
SPEAKER DIRECTORY
Remus Siclovan
Senior Systems Analyst
Health Net, Inc.
818-676-6541
Remus.siclovan@healthnet.com
Louise Tranter
Lead Speech Application Specialist
Fluency Voice Technology
+ 44 (0) 20-3178-5618
louise.tranter@fluencyvoice.com
Chris Weeks
Division Vice President, Customer Care
Comcast
720-267-7584
chris_weeks@cable.comcast.com
Gregory Simsar
Vice President, Speech Services
Syntellect, Inc.
602-789-2902
gsimsar@syntellect.com
Peter Trompetter
Vice President, Global Development
GyrusLogic, Inc.
602-432-1995
ptrompetter@gyruslogic.com
Matt Whipple
Principal Consultant,
Self-Service Solutions
Avaya
303-538-7787
mwhipple@avaya.com
Lynda Kate Smith
Vice President, General Manager
Nuance Communications
408-922-6288
lynda.smith@nuance.com
Darla Tucker
Principal, Global Consulting Services
Intervoice
214-417-4560
darla.tucker@firstdata.com
Brent Sparks
Vice President, Self Service Channels
Wachovia Bank
704-427-7544
Brent.sparks@wachovia.com
Raj Tumuluri
President
Openstream, Inc.
732-507-7033
raj@openstream.com
Jessica Stevens
Senior Engineer, VUI Design
Intervoice
972-454-8000
jessica.stevens@intervoice.com
Sarah Turney
VUI Designer
lastminute.com
sarah.turney@ yahoo.co.uk
Julie Underdahl
Senior VUI Design Engineer
Intervoice
972-454-8788
julie.underdahl@intervoice.com
Elizabeth Strand
Director of User Experience Design
Tellme Networks, Inc.
650.930.9302
Elizabeth.Strand@microsoft.com
Marge Vizcarra
Customer Services Manager
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
415-551-4707
mvizcarra@sfwater.org
David Suendermann
Speech Science Engineer
SpeechCycle
646-792-2173
david@speechcycle.com
Leslie Carroll Walker
Staff Engineer, VUI Design
Intervoice
972-454-8371
leslie.walker@intervoice.com
David Thomson
Chief Technology Officer
SpeechPhone
949-655-1677
david@speechphone.com
Mark Webb
IVR Process Engineer, VUI Design
Humana IVR User Interface Designs
502-476-2317
mwebb1@humana.com
David Thornton
Instructor
Auburn University
256-343-2772
computerdude7@gmail.com
Sunrise Semester Discussions
SpeechTEK will host early morning discussions on Monday, Tuesday, and
Wednesday in the Royale Room (6th floor) for business professionals,
project leaders, designers, and developers to openly talk about a variety of
topics. This is a great opportunity for attendees to network, discuss
challenges, and share ideas with peers and speech technology professionals.
38
AUGUST 18–20, 2008
James Whitten
Assistant Section Manager
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
415-551-3054
JWhitten@sfwater.org
Simonie Wilson
Senior Speech Scientist
VUI Design & Tuning
Intervoice
972-545-8000
simonie.wilson@intervoice.com
Dan York
Director of Emerging
Communication Technology
Voxeo
407-418-1800
dyork@voxeo.com
Hamilton Yu
Manager of Client & Product Delivery
Tellme Networks, Inc.
Hamilton.Yu@microsoft.com
Moshe Yudkowsky
President
Disaggregate
773-764-8727
spcha7_01@bl.com
Matthew Yuschik
Human Factors Specialist,
Multi-Channel Self Care
Convergys
513-784-2096
matt.yuschik@convergys.com
Catherine Zhu
Senior Voice User
Interface Design Engineer
Intervoice
972-454-8510
catherine.zhu@intervoice.com
Imed Zitouni
Senior Research Scientist
IBM
914-945-1346
izitouni@us.ibm.com
NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
AD
EXHIBITOR LIST & FLOOR PLAN
Acclaim Telecom Services, Inc. . . . . . . 506
Gold Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
Prosodie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Accuvoice, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
IBM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Resolvity, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
Aculab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
iFLYTEK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
SER Solutions, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Agnitio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Inference Communications . . . . . . . . . 522
SpeechCycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
AjaxWeaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615
Intervoice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 604
Speech Technology Magazine . . . . . . . . 317
Angel.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 806
Inventive Labs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Syntellect, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
Aspect Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
IQ Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Autonomy etalk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
Loquendo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
Avaya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
LumenVox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Cepstral. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Message Technologies Inc. . . . . . . . . . 508
Verint Witness
Actionable Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Cisco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610
MicroAutomation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Vicorp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
ClickFox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609
NeoSpeech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Vocal Laboratories, Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . 507
Convergys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Nexidia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803/805
CRM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
NICE Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614
EMPIRIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Nortel Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 801
Envox Worldwide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Nuance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
First Data Voice Services. . . . . . . . . . . 411
Nu Echo, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Genesys Telecommunications
Laboratories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Performance Technology
Partners, (PTP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
GM Voices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Persay Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
TuVox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
VClarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
VoiceObjects, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800
VoiceVerified, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
Voiyager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514
Voxeo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 804
Voxify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Walsh Media, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
West Interactive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502
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Part of the CRM
Showcase
AUGUST 18–20, 2008 w NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
MEN
AD
EXHIBITOR DIRECTORY
Acclaim Telecom
Services, Inc.
1300 E. Arapaho, Suite 206
Richardson, TX 75081
PH: 972-331-1700
FAX: 972-331-1701
www.acclaimtelecom.com
Booth 506
Acclaim Telecom is a full-service
provider of Microsoft OCS 2007
Speech Server products. We specialize in the analysis, design and development of Microsoft speech applications using current tools and technologies. From hosting your existing
Microsoft speech application to implementing a new design from the
ground up, Acclaim Telecom is always
the right choice.
Accuvoice, Inc.
343 Wainwright Drive, Suite 2E
Northbrook, IL 60062
PH: 847-559-7272
FAX: 847-559-8010
www.accuvoice.com
Booth 520
Accuvoice is a platinum Avaya developer
with 17 years of self-service and an IBM
and Nuance NLSR. We are a nationwide
government-certified, women’s business
entity (WBE) and offer business case
planning support for cost/revenue, ROI,
and funding scheduling. Visit our booth
or come to session, D204, “Speech in
Government/Utilities: Developing Call
Center Applications,” featuring the city
of San Francisco, to learn more.
Aculab
197 First Avenue, Suite 130
Needham, MA, 02494
PH: 781 433 6000
www.aculab.com
Booth 303
Aculab offers developers and service
providers a wide range of hardware
and software for integration into highperformance speech-enabled communications solutions such as voice portals and outbound IVR. Scalable
media processing resources enable
the production of cost-effective enterprise solutions for use in both PSTN
and IP environments.
cessfully adapted its robust technology to provide the most sophisticated
corporate authentication product.
Agnitio's technology is currently
deployed in over 20 countries. KIVOX,
Agnitio's corporate flagship product,
can be adapted very easily into existing voice and technology infrastructures. Unique capabilities include performing voice verification in any language and mixing different voice
channels.
small and medium enterprises to communications-enable their customer
service, collections and sales & telemarketing business processes.
AjaxWeaver
2200 Ross Avenue, Suite 3500
Dallas, TX 75201
PH: 214-981-3100
FAX: 214-981-3500
www.etalk.com
63 Alameda Way
Ottawa, ON K2J 5B3 Canada
PH: 347-834-2664
FAX: 613-249-7320
www.ajaxweaver.com
Booth 615
AjaxWeaver is the pioneer and leader
in creating web-based drag-and-drop
Ajax IDE for VoiceXML applications.
Our flagship product, VXML Orchestrator, is the very first web-based dragand-drop environment that allows end
users to build self-service dynamic IVR
applications inside web browsers. The
Orchestrator offers sleek Ajax interface and WYSIWYG capabilities to
visually layout call flows in a manner
very similar to creating Visio diagrams.
No software install, No downloads, No
plugins.
Angel.com
1861 International Drive
McClean, VA 22102
PH: 703-744-3091
FAX: 703-770-1321
www.angel.com
Booth 806
Angel.com combines powerful business voice technologies with simplified implementation and management. Our open, software-as-a-service
platform facilitates information-driven,
personalized communications and
transactions, improving business efficiency and enhancing caller satisfaction. More than 1,600 customers use
Angel.com to more efficiently and
cost-effectively build and manage call
centers and IVR solutions such as
phone surveys, payment lines, and
more.
Aspect Software
300 Apollo Drive
Chelmsford, MA 1824
PH: 978-250-7900
FAX: 978-244-7420
www.aspect.com
Agnitio
Virgilio, 25
Ciudad de la Imagen
28223 Pozuelo de Alarcon
Madrid, Spain
PH: +44 (0) 7766338089
FAX: +34 91 512 24 18
www.agnitio.es
Booth 315
Agnitio, the worldwide leader in voice
biometrics for public security, has suc-
42
Booth 415
Aspect Software, Inc. founded the
contact center industry and is now the
world's largest company focused solely on unified communications for the
contact center. Our all-in-one, IT-ready
solutions help two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100 and a variety of
AUGUST 18–20, 2008
Autonomy etalk
Booth 414
Autonomy etalk delivers enterprise
solutions for multichannel interaction
analysis, real-time information assistance, contact center performance,
and compliance management. By providing integrated tools for recording,
archiving, analyzing, and retrieving critical interactions, Autonomy etalk helps
organizations meet regulatory compliance, manage enterprise security and
risk, enhance customer support, and
uncover valuable business intelligence
for strategic operations.
Avaya
211 Mount Airy Road
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920
PH: 908-953-6000
www.avaya.com
Booth 312
Deliver exceptional value to your business and customers with video and
voice-enabled self-service solutions.
Experience the ease of application creation through Avaya Dialog Designer,
and leverage the resources of the
Avaya DevConnect developer program
to jump-start your speech-enabled
application efforts. Avaya is a global
leader in communication systems,
applications and services, serving
more than 1 million customers from
small businesses up to more than 90%
of FORTUNE 500 companies.
Cepstral
1801 E. Carson Street, Suite 200
Pittsburgh, PA 15203
PH: 412-432-0400
www.voiceforge.com/demo
Booth 303
Cepstral specializes in text-to-speech
and offers the world’s largest catalog
of English voices. Cepstral TTS
engines power embedded, desktop
and server markets. NEW!! VoiceForge
— a hosted (SaaS) voice platform delivering on-demand audio for telephony,
media sites, virtual worlds, consumer
Internet devices, and web applications.
“Fun” character voices available at
www.voiceforge. com/demo.
NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
Cisco
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134
PH: 408-526-4000
www.cisco.com/go/cvp
Booth 610
Cisco is the world leader in IP-based
contact center solutions for businesses of all sizes. The Cisco Unified
Customer Contact Solutions portfolio
includes both time-division multiplexing (TDM)- and IP-based voice and
video self- and assisted-service solutions for large and midsize contact
centers. Cisco’s self-service solutions,
including Cisco Unified Customer
Voice Portal (CVP), offer a comprehensive set of natural-language voice selfservice capabilities to automate
incoming customer inquiries and deliver intelligent, personalized self-service
over the phone, enabling customers to
efficiently and enjoyably retrieve the
information they need from the contact
center.
ClickFox
3445 Peachtree Road, Suite 1250
Atlanta, GA 30326
PH: 404-351-8020
www.clickfox.com
Booth 609
ClickFox is the only solution that
delivers true customer experience
analytics behavior, enabling organizations to see how their customers really interact across all touch points,
such as IVR, ACD, web, chat, email,
CRM, agents, point of sale systems
and interactive kiosks. ClickFox
uncovers opportunities for extending
automation, cost-savings and increasing revenue. For more information,
visit our website.
Convergys
201 East Fourth Street
Cincinnati, OH 45201
PH: 800-344-3000
FAX: 513-458-1315
www.convergys.com
Booth 304
Convergys is a global leader in relationship management. We provide
solutions that drive more value from
the relationships our clients have with
their customers and employees.
Convergys turns these everyday interactions into a source of profit and
strategic advantage for our clients. For
25 years, our unique combination of
domain expertise, operational excellence, and innovative technologies has
delivered process improvement and
actionable business insight to clients
that now span more than 70 countries
EXHIBITOR DIRECTORY
tomer satisfaction. More than 1.25 million ports of Envox’s hosted and premise-based IVR solutions have been
deployed globally and more than 1 million contact center agents benefit from
the intelligent routing, screen pop and
call monitoring functionality provided
by Envox’s award-winning CTI software. Envox’s development tools and
software platforms are also used to
streamline enterprisewide communications through unified communications solutions and to generate new
revenue streams for service providers.
First Data Voice Services
CRM Magazine
494 8th Avenue, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10001
PH: 212-251-0608
FAX: 212-779-1152
www.destinationcrm2008.com
Booth 317
CRM magazine incorporates vital information that will help you benefit from
the experience of other companies
and ensure that your company
becomes a CRM success story. The
magazine is FREE to qualified subscribers at the Web site.
EMPIRIX
20 Crosby Drive
Bedford, MA 01730
PH: 781-266-3200
FAX: 781-266-3201
www.empirix.com
Booth 313
Empirix provides the only suite of automated testing and monitoring solutions designed specifically for contact
centers. By covering the lifecycle from
pre-deployment testing to customer
experience monitoring, contact centers can identify problems before
agents and callers are affected. The
net result: reduced customer churn,
lower operating costs and improved
customer loyalty.
Envox Worldwide
2000 West Park Drive
Westborough, MA 01581
PH: 508-898-2600
FAX: 508-366-0009
www.envox.com
Booth 511
Envox Worldwide is a leading global
provider of IP-based voice self-service
and contact center solutions. The
company’s standards-based software
solutions dramatically reduce customer service costs, optimize contact
center performance and improve cus-
6200 S. Quebec St.
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
PH: 303-967-5698
FAX: 303-967-5678
www.firstdata.com
Booth 411
First Data powers the global economy
by making it easy, fast and secure for
people and businesses around the
world to buy goods and services using
virtually any form of payment. First
Data's Voice Services group powers
automated customer self-service by
developing and managing high-usage
inbound and outbound voice applications on our state-of-the-art hosted
platform. Put First Data's intelligence to
work for your business.
GM Voices
2001 Westside Parkway, Suite 240
Alpharetta, GA 30004
PH: 770-752-4500
FAX: 770-752-4545
www.gmvoices.com
Booth 307
GM Voices delivers professional
recorded voices for all applications
and languages with consistent quality
at economical rates. On average, we
deliver over 40,000 audio files a month
in over 70 languages. Combined with
our persona development, we provide
a consistent voice brand throughout
your enterprise.
Gold Systems
4840 Pearl East Circle
Suite #106
Boulder, CO 80301
PH: 800-988-7798
FAX: 303-447-0814
www.goldsys.com
Booth 410
Gold Systems develops and deploys
voice-driven communications solutions utilizing IVR, text-to-speech and
speech recognition. Our offerings
include implementing unified communications and messaging telephony
interfaces, customized contact center
solutions, and password management
for telephone-based self-service. Gold
Systems is a top-tier partner to leading
speech and messaging vendors,
including Microsoft, Avaya, and
Nuance.
Genesys Telecommunications
Laboratories
2001 Junipero Serra Blvd.
Daly City, CA 94014-3891
PH: 650-466-1100
FAX: 650-466-1260
www.genesyslab.com
Booth 316
Genesys, an Alcatel-Lucent company,
is 100% focused on software for customer interactions. Genesys provides
an integrated software suite for dynamic environments, automatically adjusting to balance corporate resources,
marketing goals, and customer needs.
With 3,300 enterprise customers in 80
countries, Genesys directs more than
100 million customer interactions every
day. For more information, visit our
website.
IBM
294 Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
PH: 914-766-1553
www.ibm.com
Booth 201
IBM Speech Solutions include a broad
range of software and services with a
strong business partner ecosystem.
Offering IBM WebSphere enterprise
speech solutions, Embedded ViaVoice
for automotive telematics and mobile
devices, IBM Business Consulting
Services dedicated to transforming
contact centers, and 40 years of
research, including more than 2,400
speech patents.
Exhibit Hours
Monday, August 18 . . . . . . . . . . . .5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Grand Opening Reception
Tuesday, August 19 . . . . . . . . . . .10:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday, August 20 . . . . . . . .10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
iFLYTEK
iFLY Mansion
HuangShan Road No. 616
Hefei, Anhui 230009 China
PH: +86 551 5397815
FAX: +86 551 5331801
www.iflytek.com/english
Booth 523
iFLYTEK is the leading speech technology solution provider in China. We have
a 70% market share in the Chinese
speech technology industry. The company owns speech synthesis, speech
recognition, oral language assessment
and many other global leading technologies. We can offer Chinese/English language solutions for the desktop, platform and embedded application environment. Appointed by the Ministry of
Information Industry of China, iFLYTEK
is now leading the work to set up the
Chinese speech technology standard.
EXHIBITOR DIRECTORY
and 35 languages. Convergys is a
member of the S&P 500 and has been
voted a Fortune Most Admired
Company for 7 consecutive years. We
have approximately 75,000 employees
in 84 customer contact centers and
other facilities in the U.S., Canada,
Latin America, Europe, the Middle
East, and Asia, and our global headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. For more
information, visit our website.
Inference Communications
Unit 1
174 High Street
Ashburton, Victoria 3147 Australia
PH: 03 8102 9352
FAX: 03 9571 6904
www.inferencecommunications.com
Booth 522
Inference Communications is a specialist natural language speech recognition
technology and solutions company.
Inference's offerings include a wide
range of pre-packaged speech solutions that can be customized, managed
and maintained by the customer via a
simple web interface. All solutions are
underpinned by Inference's award winning grammatical inference technology.
Intervoice
17811 Waterview Parkway
Dallas, TX 75252
PH: 972-454-8000
FAX: 972-454-8707
www.intervoice.com
Booth 604
Intervoice is a world leader in multimedia communications, delivering natural, intuitive ways for people to interact,
transact and communicate. Our software and professional services enable
innovative voice portal, IP contact center, hosted services and self-service
applications that empower millions of
people daily. More than 5,000 customers in 80 countries rely on
Intervoice.
W W W . S P E E C H T E K . C O M
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EXHIBITOR DIRECTORY
Inventive Labs
4955 E. Preserve Ct.
Greenwood Village, CO 80121
PH: 866-923-5290
www.voiceelements.com
Booth 303
Inventive Labs is a leading provider of
royalty-free telephony application tools
and solutions. The company’s software products and related services
include Voice Elements, a .NET toolkit
empowering businesses to rapidly
develop and deploy speech solutions.
Inventive Labs is headquartered in
Greenwood Village, Colo.
IQ Services
technologies enhance customer satisfaction and greatly reduce costs.
LumenVox
3615 Kearny Villa Road
Suite 202
San Diego, CA 92123
PH: 858-707-7700
FAX: 858-707-7072
www.lumenvox.com
Booth 303
LumenVox provides powerful and
affordable speech recognition software together with a committed focus
on excellent customer service. This
year at SpeechTEK, LumenVox will
highlight five partners who either use
our award-winning Speech Engine or
provide complementary technology:
Aculab, Cepstral, Inventive Labs,
Prosodie Interactive, and VClarity.
6601 Lyndale Avenue South
Suite 330
Minneapolis, MN 55423
PH: 612-243-6700
FAX: 612-869-6200
www.iq-services.com
Booth 408
IQ Services empowers companies to
deliver the best possible experience to
their customers through flexible managed testing services for contact center and communication solutions.
From design to production, IQ
Services delivers confidence about
solution performance through comprehensive investment protection and
test planning; performance and load
testing; application feature testing;
availability monitoring; and other test
services.
Loquendo
745 Fifth Avenue, 27th Floor
New York, NY 10151
PH: 212-310-9075
FAX: 212-310-9001
www.loquendo.com
Booth 509
Winner of “Market Leader – Best
Speech Engine” at the 2007 Speech
Industry Awards, Loquendo is the
leading innovator in speech recognition and speech synthesis, providing a
complete range of technologies for
server, embedded and desktop solutions. Currently available in 23 languages with 57 voices, and constantly
growing, Loquendo’s best-in-breed
Message Technologies Inc.
NeoSpeech
1290 Oakmead Parkway
Suite 318
Sunnyvale, CA 94085
PH: 408-914-2710
FAX: 408-914-2710
www.neospeech.com
Booth 311
NeoSpeech offers superior text-tospeech software engines and applications that deliver the most naturalsounding synthesized voice. Our TTS
languages include U.S. English,
Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese,
and Korean.
Nexidia
1995 North Park Place
Meridian - 5th Floor
Atlanta, GA 30339
PH: 770-240-8000
FAX: 770-240-7474
www.messagetech.com
3565 Piedmont Road
Building Two, Suite 400
Atlanta, GA 30305
PH: 404-495-7220
FAX: 404-495-7221
www.nexidia.com
Booth 508
Message Technologies, Inc. (MTI)
helps companies improve business
performance using IVR and speech
technologies. Since 1982, more than
2,000 companies have counted on us
for affordable, best-of-breed IVR and
speech application design, development and hosting solutions. MTI also
partners with leading speech application developers to provide a reliable
hosted infrastructure to support their
customer solutions. We have broad
capabilities, configurable applications,
custom IVR solutions, best of breed
platforms and a highly available hosted infrastructure. To learn more about
us, please visit our website.
Booth 803/805
Nexidia is the market-leading provider
of highly scalable and accurate rich
media search and speech analytics
software. Nexidia's patented phonetic
search engine (PSE) enables contact
centers to gain valuable business intelligence from their recorded customeragent interactions by analyzing call
traffic, customer experience and business opportunities. For more information, please visit our website.
MicroAutomation
10550 Linden Lake Plaza, 2nd Floor
Manassas VA 20109
PH: 1-800-817-2771
FAX: 1-703-366-3850
www.microautomation.com
Booth # 314
MicroAutomation is a leading systems
integrator offering an extensive range of
Email Stations
Email stations will be open in the Exhibit Hall during
regular exhibit hours for attendees to check their e-mail.
44
call center technology solutions and
professional services. MicroAutomation
has designed, developed and implemented speech-enhanced solutions
worldwide in a variety of industries such
as healthcare and government.
MicroAutomation’s mission is to reduce
costs and enhance caller experience
through call center automation.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008
NICE Systems
8 Hapenina Street
PO Box 690
Ra'anana, 43107 Israel
PH: 972 9 775-3777
FAX: 972 9 743-4282
www.nice.com
Booth 614
NICE Systems (NASDAQ: NICE) is the
leading provider of solutions that deliver strategic and operational insights to
the enterprises organizations by
recording and analyzing telephone
calls; website- email- and chat- content; customer transactions; and radio
communications. NICE is also the
leading provider of Interaction
Analytics Business Solution, designed
to improve contact center operational
efficiency and drive strategic enterprise initiatives.
NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
Nortel Networks
4000 Veterans Memorial Highway
Bohemia, NY 11716
PH: 631-285-2101
www.nortel.com/selfservice
Booth 801
Nortel's Media Processing Server
voice portal products provide speech
driven, converged, multimodal and
multimedia carrier quality to the enterprise, hosted or carrier customers.
MPS is cost-effective, resilient, and
secure; open-standard based, using
VoIP/SIP and/or TDM to the network.
Experience the expertise of our extensive professional services organization
and take advantage of SOA, SCE, and
VXML/CCXML.
Nuance
1 Wayside Rd.
Burlington, MA 01803
PH: 781-565-5000
FAX: 617-565-5001
www.nuance.com
Booth 501
Nuance (NASDAQ: NUAN) is in the
business of helping companies better
support, communicate with and
understand their customers. It does
this through a set of interaction solutions including Inbound Messaging,
Outbound Messaging, Analytics and
Productivity. These solutions help
drive an improved customer experience, better business performance,
and increased employee productivity
Nü Echo, Inc.
460 Sainte-Catherine W, Suite 424
Montréal, QC H3B 1A7 Canada
PH: 514-861-ECHO
FAX: 514-861-1676
www.NuEcho.com
Booth 413
Nü Echo develops the highest performance speech applications in the
industry. Building on more than a
decade of experience in speech applications development and a full suite of
application development, tuning, and
testing tools, Nü Echo is uniquely
equipped to deliver applications that
simply work better.
Performance Technology
Partners (PTP)
11246 Gold Express Drive, Suite 101
Gold River, CA 95670
PH: 916-791-8263
FAX: 916-266-8708
www.performtechnology.com
Booth 412
PTP's experienced team adds value to
your contact center by providing feature-rich applications and complete system integration. We have expertise in
contact center technologies and their
integration into your mission critical
EXHIBITOR DIRECTORY
Persay Ltd.
22 Zarhin St.
P.O. Box 4080
Ra'anana, 43665 Israel
PH: (972) 3 767 8666
+1-866-2398-515
FAX: (972) 3 767 8661
www.persay.com
Booth 321
Persay is a leading provider of
advanced biometric speaker verification products with a global network of
partners and system integrators.
Utilizing the biometric power of voice
to verify a speaker's identity, Persay's
products are used by leading financial,
telecommunications, enterprise and
law enforcement organizations.
Prosodie
855 SW 78th Avenue, Suite 100
Plantation, FL 33324
PH: 866-776-7634
www.ivrinc.com
Booth 303
Prosodie Interactive has been an
industry leading IVR service provider
for more than 20 years. Prosodie helps
to increase efficiency and customer
experience for contact centers by
automating applications such as:
inbound call routing/steering, branch/
dealer locator, service & technical support, outbound marketing dialing with
hot transfer, virtual predictive dialing
and much more.
Resolvity, Inc.
1333 Corporate Drive, Suite 200
Irving, TX 75038
PH: 972-518-0863
FAX: 972-518-0959
www.resolvity.com
Booth 617
Resolvity’s intelligent speech solutions
help companies automate a wide variety of customer support calls, ranging
from natural language call-routing to
more complex and interactive technical and product support applications.
The company has expertise in hightech, telecom, cable MSO, healthcare
and other markets. Both hosted and
on-premise solutions are available.
from recorded voice conversations to
discover customer needs and market
trends and analyze calls for script
adherence, achievement of KPIs, root
cause and fraud detection. Leveraging
SERTAINTY with your recording solution helps to reduce call volumes,
improve the customer experience, and
increase revenue opportunities.
TuVox
SpeechCycle
26 Broadway, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10004
PH: 646-792-2710
FAX: 646-792-2722
www.speechcycle.com
Booth 513
SpeechCycle Rich Phone Applications
deliver the intelligent fusion of natural
language dialogs with enterprise backend systems to create an immersive
caller experience. RPAs represent the
future of enterprise and mass consumer speech applications, connecting
web and other transactional systems
with a highly scalable, on-demand environment that enables rapid time-tovalue for phone-based initiatives.
Speech Technology Magazine
2628 Wilhite Court, Building Four
Suite 100
Lexington, KY 40403
PH: 877-993-9797
FAX: 859-278-7364
www.speechtechmag.com
Booth 217
Speech Technology magazine is recognized worldwide as the leading
source of news, information, and
analysis relating to the speech technology industry. It also provides additional sources of news, information, and
analysis through online communities
at www.speechtechmag.com and
www. speechtek.com as well as with
opt-in electronic distribution networks,
STM eWeekly and SpeechSource.
Subscribe FREE today at www.speech
techmag.com/subscribe.
Syntellect, Inc.
SER Solutions, Inc.
45925 Horseshoe Dr., Suite 150
Dulles, VA 20166
PH: 703-948-5500
FAX: 703-430-7738
www.ser.com
Booth 322
SER's speech analytics solution, SERTAINTY, extracts valuable information
improve superior end-to-end service
for their customers. With more than 2
decades of pioneering leadership and
thousands of solutions deployed globally, Syntellect is a premier provider of
enterprise-class contact center solutions for the utilities, financial services,
government, high- technology, help
desk, consumer prod ucts and healthcare industries.
16610 N Black Canyon Hwy
Suite 100
Phoenix, AZ 85053
PH: 800-788-9733
FAX: 602-789-2768
www.syntellect.com
Booth 510
At Syntellect, we help our customers
create, maintain and continuously
19050 Pruneridge Avenue
Suite 150
Cupertino, CA 95014
PH: 408-625-1700
FAX: 408-625-1770
www.tuvox.com
Booth 409
Since 2000, TuVox has become synonymous with superior caller experience.
TuVox customers achieve improved
customer retention and increased revenue through innovative combinations
of technology and agent service. TuVox
leverages customer investments in nextgeneration technology with a choice of
hosted, on-premise, and hybrid deployments, with self-managed and vendormanaged service options available.
VClarity
17581 Irvine Boulevard
Suite # 106
Tustin, CA 92780
PH: 714-333-9465
www.vclarity.com
Booth 303
VClarity provides enterprise voice solutions and a VoiceXML IVR platform for
voice-automated self-service applications, where customers can easily
manage their applications and develop, test, deploy, and host voice-automated solutions on a highly reliable
and flexible voice foundation framework and LumenVox´s multi-lingual
Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)
and Text To Speech (TTS) provided by
Cepstral and Neospeech.
Verint Witness
Actionable Solutions
Vicorp
Wexham Springs
Framewood Road
Wexham, Buckinghamshire SL3 6PJ
U.K.
PH: +44 1753 660 500
FAX: +44 1753 660 501
www.vicorp.com
Booth 306
Vicorp makes it easy for organizations
to deliver superior services over the
phone while significantly reducing
cost. Our experienced team of experts
and our smart technology can add
value to all organizations looking to
improve customer interactions and
gain competitive advantage. For more
information visit our website.
EXHIBITOR DIRECTORY
applications. Our professional services
range from project management, VUI
design, technical architecture design,
development, system integration, to
testing, tuning, and maintenance.
Vocal Laboratories, Inc.
8421 Wayzata Blvd
Suite 260
Golden Valley, MN 55426
PH: 952-941-6580
FAX: 952-941-0819
www.vocalabs.com
Booth 507
VocaLabs solves the need for costeffective and statistically accurate
feedback about client care speech
recognition, IVR, human agent, and
tone applications. Our clients are enduser enterprises, call center consultants, application providers and equipment vendors. We have the unique
ability to evaluate a customer contact
application at any stage of development, from prototype to live in the field
using a large and demographically
diverse pool of panelists, or via
Express Feedback, a proprietary service that matches live caller feedback
with call recordings from the same
individuals.
VoiceObjects, Inc.
330 South Service Road
Melville, NY 11747
PH: 631-962-9864
FAX: 631-962-9085
www.verint.com
1875 South Grant St., Suite 720
San Mateo, CA 94402
PH: 650-288-0299
FAX: 650-525-9414
www.voiceobjects.com
Booth 310
Verint Witness Actionable Solutions
offers Impact 360, an analytics-driven
workforce optimization solution that
brings together quality monitoring,
TDM and IP recording, speech and
data analytics, workforce management,
performance management, elearning,
and customer feedback surveys into a
unified solution for analyzing customer
interactions, improving workforce performance, and optimizing enterprise
customer service processes.
Booth 800
VoiceObjects is redefining over-thephone customer service for global
enterprises and carriers through adaptive, cost-effective self-service phone
portals. VoiceObjects enables organizations to personalize each caller's
experience, to integrate phone selfservice into comprehensive customer
experience strategies, and to manage
the complexity of the world's most
sophisticated phone applications. For
more information visit our website.
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45
EXHIBITOR DIRECTORY
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VoiceVerified, Inc.
110 Union Square Dr.
New Hope, PA 18938
PH: 215-862-7800
FAX: 215-402-1070
www.voiceverified.com
Booth 417
VoiceVerified is a pioneer in the voice
biometric industry, providing verification services using existing telephony
infrastructures. VoiceVerified’s Point
Service Provider (PSP) on-demand
hosted highly accurate voice verification service enables call centers and
merchants to secure consumer not
present (CNP) and other remote transactions, reduce costs, improve the
customer experience, promote brand
loyalty, and protect privacy. The
Hosted Service enables rapid deployment to enhance the speed of consumer adoption.
Voiyager
16610 N. Black Canyon Hwy.
Suite 100
Phoenix, AZ 85053
PH: 800-788-9733
FAX: 602-789-2768
www.voiyager.com
Booth 514
Voiyager is a revolutionary technology
that completely redefines how
VoiceXML applications are developed,
tested and deployed. Voiyager is the
first solution that provides 100% application testing and analysis. No other
testing methodologies or products
provide enterprises the validation that
deployed applications are error-free.
Voxeo
189 S. Orange Ave., #2050
Orlando, FL 32801
PH: 407-318-1217
FAX: 407-835-0072
www.voxeo.com
Booth 804
Voxeo makes speech applications
easy to build and deploy. The company's common sense approach isn't
rocket science: Offer a great platform.
Make it exceptionally easy for people
to try, buy and use. Provide amazing
support. This approach has made
Voxeo a leading choice among developers and the answer for companies
that believe powerful telephony solutions should be simple and affordable.
More than 30,000 developers and
enterprise customers — including half
of the Fortune 100 — use Voxeo's
Prophecy Platform and Hosting to
deliver innovative speech-driven IVR
applications, outbound notifications,
sophisticated call routing and more.
Anyone can immediately download
the Prophecy Platform or sign up to
use Voxeo's hosted developer portal
for free at www.voxeo.com/free.
Voxeo's Prophecy Platform has been
downloaded more than 20,000 times
since its launch in 2006. Its standardsbased IVR hosting platform is the
largest in the world and the only one
backed by a 100% uptime guarantee.
For more information, call or visit our
website.
Voxify
Center Applications. IVR, Speech
Recognition, PBX, ACD, Message-onhold and websites are all systems
Walsh Media can assist in enhancing
the customer experience. Since 1986,
we have supported the Fortune 1000
and companies across the continent
to improve the way they communicate
with their callers.
1151 Marina Village Parkway
Alameda, CA 94502
PH: 510-545-5000
FAX: 510-545-5055
www.voxify.com
Booth 505
Voxify enables contact centers to offer
self-service for customer phone calls.
Automated Agents are speech applications that offer the lowest risk to
deployment and a rapid return on
investment. Built from industry-specific
templates and patented conversational models, Automated Agents allow
callers to speak naturally resulting in
the best customer service.
Walsh Media, Inc.
2100 Clearwater Dr., #201
Oakbrook, IL 60523
PH: 630-574-8008
FAX: 630-574-8118
www.walshmedia.com
Booth 515
Walsh Media, Inc., provides professional voice solutions for Contact
West Interactive
11808 Miracle Hills Drive
Omaha, NE 68154
PH: 800-841-9000
FAX: 402-963-1602
www.westinteractive.com
Booth 502
West Interactive is a leading provider
of hosted and managed automated
customer contact solutions, custom
speech applications, automated notifications, customer surveys, networkbased call routing and analytic services. We make self-service a positive
customer experience that drives customer satisfaction, reduces costs and
generates revenue. For more information, please call or visit our website.
COMPANY WORKSHOPS
Company workshops are open to all attendees and are located in the Manhattan Ballroom.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19
West Interactive w 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Unified Communications — A Strategic
Approach to Driving Greater Value
Unified communications enables relevant transactions based on end-user need to drive improved
revenue and loyalty with maximum efficiency. Delivering on the right blended solution differentiates
your brand by providing the greatest value to the
end user and great market share for your company.
Join West Interactive and learn how a unified communications strategy will improve your brand while
reducing costs.
AUGUST 18–20, 2008
Convergys w 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Making It Easy to Get What You Want
Steven Cawn, IBM Speech Sales Leader
Rhonda Gibler, Senior Vice President,
West Interactive
46
IBM w 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
This workshop will provide a detailed review of
IBM’s Free Form Commands speech solutions,
which are an extension of IBM’s WebSphere Voice
Server and Embedded ViaVoice family of speech
products. This offering enables customers and
solution providers to implement a robust natural
language call routing solution. IBM speech experts
will discuss application development and the available development tools, implementation considerations, and tuning of Free Form Command applications. Both of IBM’s speech families (WebSphere
Voice Server and Embedded ViaVoice) will be covered, providing the attendees insight into natural
language solutions for almost every speech application in use today.
Exhibit Hours
Monday, August 18
5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Grand Opening Reception
Tuesday, August 19
10:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday, August 20
10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
NEW YORK MARRIOTT MARQUIS, NEW YORK CITY
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